EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS): continuing current limitations of scope for aviation activities and preparing to implement a global market-based measure from 2021 (debate)
Bas Eickhout, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Mr President, first of all, I would like to join the choir of people thanking the rapporteur, Ms Girling, for her very good work on this file, as well as on the other file, but we will do that for next month I guess. The way in which you dealt with his file is really appreciated, as is the way in which you managed to get a broad majority in this House on board. That was a very good job on a not necessarily easy topic, so in that sense, I offer my congratulations.
So what does this deal really mean? It means that aviation for intra-EU flights will now also come under the decreasing cap of emission trading, which was not the case until now. Until now, they were part of ETS but they got a lot of free allowances and no decrease in caps. Finally, some shortage of emission allowances will hit this sector, because in the end every sector needs to play its role. Until now, aviation has been excluded. But that’s only for intra-EU flights.
Of course, for international flights outside the EU we still have an exemption and we still rely on the international organisation ICAO. First of all, I would like to stress to the Commission, which sometimes gets cold feet when making new proposals, for example on maritime and on shipping emissions, that if there is one thing that is very clear from this experience, it is that if the EU did not take a step in 2008, ICAO would never have come to the deal that they have on the table now. EU policies do influence global policies, and the Commission should not shy away from it, rather it should learn from it and step up its efforts regarding the maritime sector, because that is the only other sector still not playing any role.
But secondly, we still have to wait and see what ICAO is really going to deliver. We know that ICAO has now delivered on their principle, but many countries still said that they do not agree with the target of a neutral greenhouse gas growth path after 2020. We do not yet know how many countries will really fulfil that target.
Thirdly, they allowed for huge offsetting for themselves, and that’s why I looked a bit surprised at my colleague Seb Dance, who talked about admiration for ICAO. I think that’s a bit too early. We need to know what they’re going to deliver, and how they are going to develop their offsetting scheme is going to be key. If we had just said ‘okay, we trust the global deal and that’s it’, we would have made a very big mistake. That is why it is good that we time-limited the derogation until 2023. I would have loved to be a bit stricter, but I can live with this compromise. ICAO has until 2023 to deliver on an offsetting scheme, otherwise the EU needs to take action on its own.