The plan, detailed in a set of two draft EU regulations on verification and monitoring of greenhouse gases, comes amid an ongoing controversy over the potential negative effects of biofuels on the environment.
It also comes amid growing concern that Europe's cap-and-trade scheme for airlines could trigger a full-scale commercial war with the US and China, which are opposed to the airline charge.
The draft legislation gives European industries details on how they should report about greenhouse gases covered by the EU's flagship emissions trading scheme (EU-ETS).
Among those is a requirement for airlines to list "the amount of biomass used as a fuel," broken down on a yearly basis. The airlines' biofuel consumption should come "as an annex to the annual emission report," the draft reads.
The two draft texts still need approval by EU member states and the European Parliament before they become law.
Isaac Valero Ladron, European Commission spokesperson for climate change issues, told EurActiv that the aim is to provide incentives for airlines to use more biofuels, assuming that those have "a zero-emissions factor".
"Under the EU ETS we provide a financial incentive for the use of biofuels in aviation, as use of biofuels has a zero-emissions factor, which means that no allowances need to be surrendered," Ladron told EurActiv in e-mailed comments.
"This means the biofuels have a subsidy equivalent to the prevailing carbon price," he explained, describing the scheme as "a cost-effective incentive as the subsidy for biofuels is equivalent to the cost of reducing emissions in other sectors."
Carbon reduction pledge
Airlines see biofuels as a crucial part of their commitment to achieving "carbon-neutral growth" by 2020. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has set a target of ramping up biofuels use to 10% of all consumption by 2017, saying that they have the potential to reduce the industry's carbon footprint by up to 80%.
For US planemaker Boeing, biofuels will be essential to achieving the airline's pledge for carbon-neutral growth.
"Without biofuels, we cannot get there. It is a vital contribution," Antonio De Palmas, Boeing's president for EU and NATO relations, said in a 2011 interview with EurActiv.
Land use issue still not resolved
The Commission indicates that the European aviation carbon-reduction scheme will only account biofuels that respect the EU-certified sustainability schemes.
"Sustainable biofuels are fuels which achieve higher greenhouse gas savings compared to the average fossil fuel, and are not be cultivated on the land with high biodiversity value or on the peatland which has a high carbon stock," Ladron said.
However, green activists warned there was no guarantee that biofuels used in planes will not contribute to so-called Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC) – a process whereby displaced human activity caused by converting forests and grasslands to biofuels production results in additional CO2 emissions.
"It's good that the sustainability criteria have been extended to cover the ETS, but as long as ILUC is not included there is no guarantee of actual emissions reductions," said Dudley Curtis, from Transport & Environment, a green NGO.
Ladron acknowledged this shortcoming in the EU's biofuels policy, telling EurActiv that "discussions ILUC are still going on" within the European Commission.
The EU executive has postponed several times its proposal on ILUC, which is now expected in the spring.
COMMENTS
Airlines look for a new landing strip....
Just before Christmas the European Union Court of Justice successfully upheld EU law to include foreign airlines in its Emission Trading Scheme (ETS). From this month, the EU Aviation Directive will force all airlines to buy carbon credits for flights in and out of Europe. The response from large parts of the aviation industry has been hugely disappointing.
As the world’s only mandatory programme to address emissions from aviation, the Directive’s measures have provoked a chorus of criticism from India, China and, in particular, the US. Many airlines outside Europe have reacted angrily to the decision as it will increase the cost of flying to the continent. True, if they cannot increase their efficiency or absorb this expense it will have to be passed on to customers, but this negative attitude towards a progressive policy is sadly reminiscent of the wider ongoing climate negotiations.
Read the full article at http://bit.ly/xbM4Xe or in Euractiv blogsite http://bit.ly/A2eg0C
Surely this can be considered as it is?
The only difference between the Airlines making the Funds pay for them is that they are not the Fuel Companies. I like the idea personally.
Having read all of the articles now relating to this I can now see why the Air Line Industry is for this and against this.
This makes real sense for the Polluter Pays Principle is levied in one direction and the Company off-setting the Pollution gets rewards for implementing a strategy (in this instance using Bio-Jet-Av-Gas) and receiving that reward as an off-set.
It then also makes sense why so many Air-lines (like those in the Middle East and many others World-Wide) are beginning to think that there may be other benefits to this issue.
The Biofuels produced for this will be available at lower costs than the host fuels used by a long way.
I am hearing that in terms of the combined costs for manufacturing and the inclusive funding will be at a par with producing the Biofuel (Ethanol) produced from Non-Food sources (such as Wastes and Macro-Algae) with costs to use such source materials less than those currently being charged by all of the ATT and AD systems for Municipal Solid Waste treatment a success (and a win-win situation for the Urban population with their major waste programme) it is hardly surprising that this Company is currently on the crest of the wave using this issue to extol itself and is setting up so many projects in Morocco Cyprus Malta and the UK (all as was announced in Bloomberg press last year.)
Since the Air-lines will have access to these fuels progressively from 2014 and from this Company in its roll out developments (which includes its further major works around the World) it also is a positive issue that the Air Lines are forward looking.
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