Global aviation emissions Agreement

The European Commission welcomes agreement on global aviation emissions deal[1]

European Commission

Press release

Brussels, 4 October 2013

The European Commission today welcomed the decision by the UN Assembly responsible for International Civil Aviation (ICAO) to decide on a global mechanism to tackle emissions from aviation. The Assembly has agreed to develop by 2016 a global market based mechanism to tackle emissions, which can come into force in 2020. The market based mechanism will be accompanied by a series of technical and operational measures to reduce emissions. With this deal, the aviation industry becomes the first international transport sector to apply a global market-based mechanism to reduce their emissions[2].

European Commission Vice President Kallas, Head of the EU Delegation to ICAO and EU Commissioner responsible for Transport said, "I am very pleased that after long and hard negotiations we finally have a global deal on aviation emissions. This is good news for the travelling public, good news for the aviation industry, but most importantly it is very good news for the planet.  We have also avoided a damaging conflict among trading partners.  We still have some detailed work to do between now and 2016.  But tonight, we have demonstrated that we really mean business when it comes to dealing with aviation's environmental footprint.

EU Climate Change Commissioner Connie Hedegaard, said: ''The EU's hard work has paid off. After so many years of talks, ICAO has finally agreed to the first-ever global deal to curb aviation emissions. If it hadn't been for the EU's hard work and determination, we wouldn't have got this decision today to create a global market-based measure. What matters to us is that the aviation sector also contributes to our efforts to reduce emissions. While we would have liked more countries to accept our regional scheme, progress was made overall and we will now factor this in when, together with the member states and the European Parliament, we decide on the way forward with the EU ETS.''

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[1] We thank the Cámara de Exportadores de la República Argentina for this information.

[2] One should  bear in mind that the International Maritime Organization has also worked on a global kind of deal, although it is not market based. See “Blue World and Shipping” in this same blog, October 22, 2012, where it says: "Shipping is subjected to the first ever global and legally binding CO2 regulations for an entire economic or industrial sector. Annex VI to the MARPOL Convention was adopted to regulate the emission of air pollutants from ships, and amended in July 2011 to include regulations

on energy efficiency for ships. It is one of 13 treaty instruments IMO has adopted since the Earth Summit of 1992, dealing exclusively with the protection of the marine and atmospheric environment from adverse impacts deriving from shipping.