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ELFAA welcomes EU Parliament’s Decision on the Climate Change

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Tallinn

As from the latest presser sent by ELFAA - European Low Fares Airline Association -, it sounds that the EU institutions finally managed to make everyone happy. Or maybe just almost everyone. Because when a lobby such this one celebrates, well, I start feeling a bit less secure.

ELFAA welcomes the compromise agreement

reached between the EU Presidency and the Parliament, as part of the Climate

Change Package, not to change their earlier agreement of June 2008 but to retain a

separate scheme for aviation in the EU ETS.

The compromise agreement of June 2008 led to a design for the aviation scheme,

which was demanding yet took account of the need for airlines to continue to invest in

new technology to further improve their environmental performance.

While an ETS cap and trade scheme offers an incentive to airlines to improve their

environmental efficiency, auctioning does nothing to enhance the environmental

effectiveness of ETS for aviation, there being no possibility of windfall profits. ELFAA

sees no justification for any auctioning for aviation in ETS and is pleased to note that

the compromise agreement has resisted the calls for progressive increases in

auctioning of aviation allowances.

The auctioning of 15% of aviation allowances, together with a cap of 97% for 2012,

reducing, from 2013 onwards to 95% of actual emissions in 2004-06, is highly

ambitious and will require many airlines to purchase more than 15% of allowances.

To make a real environmental contribution, it is clearly vital that all flights into and out

of the EU be captured. The removal of the risk of progressive increases in auctioning

will make EU ETS more saleable to third countries, reducing the risk of legal

challenge.