The climate deal Trump won’t kill

Donald Trump made his disdain for global climate action clear the day he pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement. Since then, his administration has been on a climate bashing marathon, dismantling wind turbines, weakening fuel-efficiency standards, and scuppering an agreement on global maritime transport just a few months ago - not to mention the many other incendiary geopolitical initiatives with which he continues to surprise us. In the face of such destructive inertia, one wonders why one international climate deal seems to be escaping his rage.

CORSIA, the global aviation climate scheme run by the UN’s aviation body (ICAO), may be the only climate agreement Trump will never try to kill precisely because it asks almost nothing of the United States, or of airlines anywhere in the world. In fact, its raison d’être is to prevent other countries from taking meaningful action, first and foremost Europe.

A decade and a half ago, the European Union made the world’s first serious effort to cap and price aviation emissions. The EU supposedly “overreached”, by trying to put a carbon price on the full journey of any flight touching Europe, incoming and departing. The move provoked a backlash, skillfully stoked by Airbus and others, which ended with Russia, China and the Obama administration ganging up on Europe to cancel its carbon scheme for aviation in 2012.

CORSIA was the fig leaf offered to Europe to cover its retreat.

The Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation, was conceived in 2012, and launched in 2016 as the aviation industry’s answer to climate change. Under the scheme airlines can offset the growth in their international aviation emissions by buying carbon credits, allowing air traffic to keep rising while claiming “carbon neutral growth.”

But CORSIA’s real significance is geopolitical, not environmental.

The EU never fully abandoned the idea of covering flights departing from Europe. Indeed, the EU is legally committed to assess the effectiveness of CORSIA. If Europe’s new Climate Commissioner, Wopke Hoekstra, finds the offsetting scheme isn’t as effective as its own ETS, it must bring back its own international carbon price to the table.

The clock is ticking; the EU will decide on 17 July whether to extend the rules to all flights departing from Europe.

In the meantime, Washington and the major airlines are again mounting a blatant lobbying campaign to continue shirking responsibility for their carbon footprint, by insisting on maintaining the smokescreen that is CORSIA. Last week, ICAO itself issued a call to avoid “regional measures” and "maintain harmonization”. A pointed criticism aimed squarely at the EU, coming just a few days before the Commission is due to publish its assessment of the offsetting scheme, which has now lost any shred of credibility. Even its architects now acknowledge it’ll deliver only minimal climate benefits.

The global landscape has changed since 2012. China is including aviation in its own cap and trade system and is locked in an intense geopolitical rivalry with the US. Russia’s ability to blackmail Europe is a thing of the past. Europe also included shipping in its ETS, asking ships sailing from countries, including the US and China to pay for 50% of their incoming and departing journey’s carbon pollution, showing what a smart international aviation ETS look like. No one objected.

And Trump? One might think he has more important issues to deal with, such as the US mid terms. But if there’s one thing we’ve learnt from his administration over the last few months, it’s that he doesn't shy away from a fight.

What has not changed is the urgency to tackle aviation’s climate impact and reduce its dependency on fossil fuels, glaringly evident since the crisis in the Middle East. Over 95% of EU’s jet fuel depends on imported fossil fuel, and roughly one third of European jet fuel demand is met by directly importing refined jet fuel, with the Middle East as the main supplier.

Our dependency on fossil fuels - not the ETS - is what is causing sudden ticket price increases. The crisis has triggered jet fuel shortages that have led to significant flight cancellations and an increase in fuel costs. For long-haul extra-European flights, in the early days of the conflict, the fossil fuel dependency added around €88 per passenger. ETS ticket price increases were tiny in comparison.

If CORSIA is the only deal the climate-denier in chief approves of, it’s a bad deal. The EU has a chance to correct this by extending the scope of its carbon market to all departing flights. The inclusion of long haul flights would raise €7 billion a year in fair taxes on the mostly (very) wealthy people flying to New York, Bali and Dubai.

It would also address the great unfairness whereby a Dutch family flying to Spain on holiday pays more than a businessman travelling to New York, or indeed the strange situation whereby the EU taxes travel to its own aviation hubs, but gives Istanbul, Qatar and Dubai a free pass.

EU Climate commissioner Hoekstra has talked a big game about the need to end aviation’s tax holiday. He pledged commitment to a “global aviation tax”. Those are nice words. It turns out that he actually has the power to deliver on them.