Europe’s aviation industry has urged the European Commission to abandon plans to extend the bloc’s carbon market to international flights, warning the move could trigger a trade war and cripple the continent’s airlines.
In an open letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, made public on June 5, industry leaders argued that pricing emissions from flights leaving Europe would provoke retaliation from major trading partners.
The letter was signed by executives from Airlines for Europe (A4E), Airports Council International Europe (ACI Europe), the Aerospace, Security and Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD), CANSO Europe and the European Regions Airline Association (ERA).
At stake is a “stop the clock” mechanism that has exempted flights to and from outside Europe from carbon costs for more than a decade. The derogation is legally due to expire at the end of 2026, which would automatically pull international flights into the scheme from January 2027.
A revision of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) is due on July 15. The signatories urged the Commission not to let the exemption lapse while the overhaul remained under negotiation.
“In the current geopolitical context, extending the EU ETS beyond intra-EEA flights will likely provoke an even stronger international backlash than in 2012,” they wrote.
The reference pointed to the bloc’s last attempt to regulate international aviation emissions, when the United States Congress barred US airlines from taking part and the EU backed down under pressure.
The industry instead backed the UN’s Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) as the single global framework for pricing aviation emissions. The scheme covers about 60 per cent of international aviation carbon dioxide emissions, according to the campaign group Aviation Benefits Beyond Borders.
Under current rules, the ETS would be widened if CORSIA failed to align with the Paris Agreement or covered less than 70 per cent of global aviation emissions. The European Commission is due to report on the scheme’s environmental integrity to the European Parliament and the Council by July 1, though a Commission spokesperson said it had not yet been filed.
Aviation has been covered by the ETS since 2012 and falls under the EU’s Green Deal target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 per cent by 2030. Climate campaigners have pushed for international flights to be included, arguing the exemption has left one of the largest gaps in Europe’s carbon pricing.
