UN reaches deal on airline carbon emissions

The United Nations has agreed on a framework to tackle the aviation industry's carbon emissions, in an unprecedented show of unity that has been welcomed by Singapore Airlines and other industry players.

After years of discord, the 191 member states of the United Nations' International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), including Singapore, reached a last-minute consensus at their triennial assembly in Montreal, Canada, which ended last Friday.

The UN agency has committed that from 2020, airlines will comply with a global market-based measure to cap the industry's aviation emissions.

Details of the scheme, including how carriers will be monitored and emissions data verified, will be discussed and finalised over the next few years. The final plan will be presented at the next ICAO Assembly in 2016.

SIA is "pleased" that headway has been made towards a global solution under which "all airlines are treated fairly", said spokesman Nicholas Ionides.

"This is one of our concerns with the European Union's Emissions Trading System scheme, which was being imposed unilaterally by the EU on international airlines, as it offered airlines operating through hubs closer to Europe an unfair advantage."

Under the EU's plan, announced in 2008, airlines will have to keep to a stipulated amount of carbon emissions or buy extra units from the carbon trading market.

As charges would be based on carbon emitted during the entire flight, instead of just over Europe, it penalises long-haul carriers like SIA.

ICAO's agreement should avert the EU's plan, industry watchers said.

Mr Paul Steele, executive director of the Air Transport Action Group which represents global carriers, airports and other industry players, heralded ICAO's consensus as a "historic resolution".

"We now have agreement on a global scheme and a timeline and the building blocks to deliver it."

Aviation currently accounts for about 2 per cent of man-made greenhouse emissions. But with demand for air travel projected to soar in the coming decades, stakeholders are committed to the green movement.

The International Air Transport Association (Iata), which represents about 240 global carriers, has pledged that from 2020, the industry will achieve growth without increasing its carbon emissions. By 2050, the target is for its carbon emissions to be half that of 2005's.

The industry intends to achieve this through various measures, including continuing investment in fuel-efficient aircraft and switching from fossil fuels like oil to alternative sources, namely biofuels, which cause less pollution.

Following the ICAO agreement, Iata's chief executive and director-general Tony Tyler said : "Without losing any of the momentum built up over these last two weeks, we are eager to get on with the detailed work needed to design the global scheme."

karam@sph.com.sg

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