Finance ministers hold back progress on aviation and shipping climate talks

With the two global bodies – Icao for aviation and IMO for shipping – having failed to take any action on climate change since being asked to do so by the Kyoto climate summit 12 years ago, pressure is coming from a number of countries and from NGOs for Copenhagen to set reduction targets for both sectors and finally start cutting aviation’s and shipping’s contribution to global warming.

The EU had been expected to announce its target proposal at Bangkok to allow for adequate discussion before Copenhagen, but the Bangkok meeting ended with EU governments still unable to agree on the numbers.

T&E policy officer Bill Hemmings, who was in Bangkok, said, ‘Rather than the hoped-for momentum to push for early global action, the meeting got bogged down on issues relating to the need to recognise shared responsibility for emissions across the globe, while at the same time reflecting the different obligations – particularly resting on developed countries – to bear most of the burden of addressing climate change.

‘As the meeting ended, there were signs that the revenues from measures to reduce aviation and shipping emissions – which could be substantial – might be enough to motivate governments to take action. The problem is that financing measures to tackle climate change is a critical issue for developing countries, yet EU finance ministries, who ultimately have to decide any EU position on the use of revenues, don’t seem convinced or cannot shake off their traditional reluctance to accept that money coming in could be earmarked for a specific purpose.’

Last month the International Air Transport Association (Iata) proposed that the aviation industry would cut its carbon emissions by 50% between 2005 and 2050. T&E responded by showing how the proposal was effectively ‘meaningless’, as it was only aspirational and lacked any commitment on measures to achieve these cuts.

Icao and Iata seem to be pushing for a commitment to achieve a fuel efficiency improvement across the world’s commercial airline fleet of 1.5% per year up to 2020, then relying on biofuels and technological advances to achieve further reductions.

Hemmings added, ‘The 1.5% fuel efficiency improvement is probably less than what the industry is achieving already, and it would be impossible to enforce as it’s a fleet average measurement.

‘As regards long-term emission reductions, both Icao and Iata remain uncommitted on the question of global market measures – notably emissions trading. And in any case their positions seem to be based on the premise that aviation emissions could continue to grow indefinitely, and that, at some point, aviation might agree to pay its external costs by paying for emission reductions in developing countries.’