Airline Trade War? Global Opposition Grows Against EU Emissions Law
The rest of the world is furious at the EU’s plan to impose emissions fees on airlines flying to Europe. This week, representatives of almost two dozen countries met in Moscow to sign a joint protest. Some say that a trade war may be imminent.
A European Union law to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from airlines traveling to and from Europe has drawn a joint protest from 23 non-EU countries and sparked talk of a global trade war.
The law incorporates the aviation industry into Europe’s emissions trading scheme and requires airlines to pay for their greenhouse-gas emissions by obtaining special permits. Eight-five percent of the permits are being given away for free; the other 15 percent are initially expected to add about $2 to the cost of a trans-Atlantic flight.
But for representatives of 23 countries who convened in Moscow on Wednesday, the price is too high.
The United States, China, Japan, Russia and India were among the signatories of the so-called Moscow Joint Declaration, in which they registered their disapproval and agreed to coordinate punitive measures against European airlines in retaliation, such as taxes on airlines that fly into or over their countries.
Some of the countries are also considering banning their national airlines from participating in the emissions trading scheme at all. The Chinese government has already imposed such a ban. Airlines that do not comply will face fines from the EU beginning in April 2013; if they fail to pay, they could be denied permission to fly to the EU.
Global Instead of Regional
Still, the Moscow declaration did not call for a formal complaint to the United Nations and dropped some of the more aggressive proposals from an earlier draft, such as a commonly worded letter to the EU expressing the states’ refusal to comply and a reopening of existing trade agreements in other sectors.
Airlines, which have opposed Europe’s unilateral action on airline emissions regulation, cheered the declaration.
Lufthansa spokesman Peter Schneckenleitner, like other airline representatives, insists that any such regulations need to be global rather than regional. “At the end of this process, it looks like the European airlines will be the big losers,” Schneckenleitner said. “In general, Lufthansa’s not against an emissions law. But it has to be competitively neutral.”
But defenders of the EU program say calls for global action are disingenuous, given that no global regulations are forthcoming.
“Of course our preferred option has always been a global agreement,” Isaac Valero-Ladrón, the spokesman for the European Climate Commission in Brussels, said. “No one is against a global agreement. But let’s be frank. What’s been the willingness to get a global agreement? Nonexistent.”
He added, “Our question to these Moscow participants is: What is your constructive alternative?”