EPA ruling an opportunity for EU and America to cooperate on aviation emissions

Bill Hemmings, aviation director at Transport & Environment, said: “We now have the real possibility of the EU and the US cooperating to fix the deeply-flawed UN aviation efficiency standard. The European transport commissioner Violeta Bulc should grab this opportunity with both hands.”

In contrast to this long-awaited first sign of US ambition on reducing aviation emissions, the EU transport decarbonisation strategy, published last week, was disappointingly silent on what will be done in Europe to reduce aviation’s climate impact. However, the EPA ruling creates a possibility for effective EU-US cooperation. Both markets account for over half of global aviation emissions, and Boeing (US) and Airbus (EU) aircraft are responsible for over 90% of global aviation CO₂.