By Kate Abnett
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Airlines should pay for all of their CO2 emissions in Europe from 2026, a year earlier than initially planned by the EU, according to an early draft of the European Parliament’s position on the policy.
The European Union is overhauling its climate policies to achieve a goal of cutting net emissions by 55% by 2030 from 1990 levels. The European Commission says all sectors must contribute to the target, including aviation, which makes up roughly 4% of EU CO2 emissions.
The Commission proposed last summer that airlines stop getting free CO2 permits under the EU carbon market by 2027 – hiking the price carriers must pay when they pollute.
An early draft of the European Parliament’s amendments to that proposal would pull forward that date to 2026.
From 2024, airlines would lose 33.3% of their free CO2 permits, the draft said, rather than the 25% proposed by the Commission. From 2025, they would lose 66.6%, rather than 50%.
That would mean an extra 12 million CO2 permits are sold into the carbon market for polluters to buy, according to the draft amendments by parliament’s lead lawmaker on the policy, Suncana Glavak.
Airlines currently get most of their carbon permits – more than 80% – for free.
Glavak, a Croatian lawmaker, said airlines lack solutions to quickly cut their emissions, and proposed that an EU innovation fund should help develop technologies to cut the sector’a emissions, including sustainable fuels and cleaner engines.
Emissions from flights within Europe are covered by the EU carbon market, but flights to and from the EU are not.
Those international trips are covered by a CO2 offsetting scheme set up by United Nations aviation agency ICAO, which becomes mandatory for countries in 2027.
Parliament’s draft report said the EU should try to strengthen that scheme, which has been criticised by some countries and campaigners as unlikely to curb emissions.
If ICAO’s measures fall short of the EU’s climate goals, “other carbon mitigation options should be put in place,” the report said.
(Reporting by Kate Abnett, editing by Marine Strauss and Angus MacSwan)
