Rapport : les plans d'allocation pour les émissions du secteur de l’aviation de l’UE sont trop faibles[en] 

In December 2006, the Commission tabled a legislative proposal to include aviation in the emissions-trading system (ETS) in view of helping Europe to reach its targets under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and combat global warming. 

If approved by Parliament and the Council as it stands, the scheme would enter into force as of 2011 for all intra-EU flights and one year later for all flights using EU airports. 

Current proposals to include aviation in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme will fail to significantly reduce aviation's rapidly growing contribution to climate change, according to a report published on 4 September by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester. 

The report, which was commissioned by green lobby group Friends of the Earth, warns that the proposal "does not reflect the urgency and time-critical nature of the climate problem". 

It calls for airlines to be brought into the ETS by 2010 at the latest, bearing in mind that passenger numbers, and hence aviation emissions, are currently growing at around 6-7% per year. 

Immediate interim measures aimed at limiting the sector's growth will also be necessary, it adds. 

Furthermore, the study calls for a much tighter cap, based on 1990 - or even earlier - levels (rather than on average emissions from 2004-2006), with full auctioning of emission credits (rather than giving them to airlines for free) and limited or no opportunities to purchase credits from other sectors. 

If such conditions are not imposed, the price of carbon permits will likely remain at current levels of less than €50 per tonne – barely affecting ticket prices or demand for flights, claims the report - adding that carbon prices "well in excess of €300/tonne" will be necessary to significantly curb demand as well as emissions growth. 

Dr. Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre's Energy Programme said: "The current ETS proposal on aviation must be significantly strengthened so as to both drive down emission rates and force the adoption of more efficient aircraft technologies and operation."

"We delude ourselves if we believe the proposed framing of the EU ETS is in keeping with the EU's own and repeated commitment to limit climate change to a two degree Celsius rise." 

In a separate paper , experts from the Tyndall Centre also point to the need for interim measures: "If nations continue to invest in aviation infrastructure (airports, runways and new aircraft) prior to 2012, it will be difficult to make an argument not to make use of it. Consequently, an urgent and effective pre-EU ETS policy is essential to immediately curtail the facilitation of further aviation growth. Whilst this will undoubtedly be politically difficult to achieve, shying away from it will not only permit an increasing accumulation of aviation-related carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the pre-EU ETS period, but is likely to make any subsequent policies either too draconian to be adopted or completely inadequate in terms of carbon mitigation." 

Green NGO Friends of the Earth called on MEPs and member states to take the Tyndall study's conclusions into account during the legislative process and called for a series of other measures to be taken. 

The group's aviation campaigner Richard Dyer said: "Other political measures are also needed to tackle the growing climate impact of flying. This should include VAT on air tickets, a tax on aviation fuel and opposition to new runways." 

But airlines  are vigorously opposed both to having a stricter emissions cap imposed on the sector and to any form of additional taxation. 

In a study commissioned by six airline associations last June, they argue that even a 2004-2006 baseline would be much too constricting as it would leave 17 years of growth unaccounted for, thereby forcing the industry to undertake massive credit investments, of more than €45 billion from 2011 to 2022, even if credits are given away for free (EurActiv 06/06/07). 

As for auctioning, International Air Carrier Association (IACA) Director-General Sylviane Lust added: "If we have to by all our emissions from scratch, it will be impossible to survive."