Jos Dings is the Director of T&E, the European Federation for Transport and Environment, the main environmental organisation focusing on the transport sector. T&E sees the application of the emissions trading scheme to aviation as a “failed opportunity”.

T&E describes the inclusion of aviation in the ETS as a missed opportunity. Why?

In terms of environmental effectiveness, stricter emissions ceilings and a multiplier coefficient to take gases other than CO2 into account were important factors. We would also have liked to see the directive include a provision that only allows airlines to buy permits if they had first reduced their emissions to a certain level. All the impact studies show that the system as it stands will not be very effective. It will not lead to a significant reduction of emissions from the aviation industry. That is a fact. The proportion of reduction will not even reach a year’s worth of emissions growth. Emissions from the aviation industry have risen by roughly 4% a year since the 1990s, and the inclusion of aviation in the ETS as it is designed will lead to only around a 3% cut in emissions, i.e. nine months of growth. That can only be seen as a very modest start to an environmental policy for aviation.

Is all that really useful? According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC), aviation accounts for only 2% of global CO2 emissions...

Yes, but it also accounts for less than 1% of global GDP. Aviation is not the most important sector in the world and its contribution to climate change is much higher than its contribution to the economy. What is more, we dispute this figure of 2%. Three years ago, we analysed the studies available and concluded that the overall impact of aviation is from 4 to 9% of global emissions. The margin depends on the impact of cirrus clouds, which is not yet entirely known today. But even if aviation’s responsibility for climate change does not reach double figures - i.e. it turns out to be less than 10% - the economic importance of this sector makes it a relatively very ‘dirty’ sector. It requires huge amounts of carbon and emits appalling levels of CO2 to produce economic effects. It is an extremely carbon-intensive sector. For passengers and goods, it is the most carbon-intensive form of transport. And if such a sector is not forced to make changes, that will be the perfect excuse for the other sectors not to do anything either. We cannot afford to be choosy in combating climate change. Everyone has to contribute.

You argued for a system based essentially on auctioning. That option was not chosen...

Auctions are not the most important aspect as far as the system’s effectiveness is concerned, but they are justified to keep airlines from taking advantage of the system at the expense of passengers (‘windfall profit’). Nor does it make sense, from the standpoint of economic effectiveness, to have free permits. Free permits would be a very ineffective way of tackling pollution because it makes governments, rather than airlines, responsible for deciding how many permits each airline needs.

If air transport sector is not forced to make changes, that will be the perfect excuse for the other sectors not to do anything either