The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) organized five Global Aviation Dialogues (GLADs) around the world to discuss the latest draft proposal on a market based measure to curb emissions from international aviation. The dialogues came to a close on 8 April, but there are already worrying signs that important elements around ambition, emission unit quality criteria and double counting of these units may not be adequately addressed. If left untreated, these missing elements would lead to a toothless proposal that will do little for the environment.
Scroll down for French and Spanish Following the Paris Agreement, 2016 will be another crucial year for climate as countries are set to adopt the first ever agreement on limiting the emissions of the aviation sector. So far however, the proposal is far from being ambitious. It is up to the civil society to raise …
Read more “Watch This! NGO Newsletter #14: 2016, a key year to pressure aviation to do their fair share!”
Background In October this year, member countries of the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) will decide what role the aviation sector should play in tackling climate change. As this will be the first important milestone in tackling aviation emissions, civil society must play a decisive role in lobbying for stringent rules, ambitious targets, and …
Read more “Take-off Toolkit: Acting on Aviation Emissions”
2016 will be key for the aviation sector, responsible for 4.9% of global yearly greenhouse gas emissions. In October, UN member countries, gathered under the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) assembly, will decide what role aviation should play in tackling climate change. Only an ambitious agreement can fulfill the Paris agreement objective to limit global …
Read more “Aviation emissions: letters to national environment Ministers”
“Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.” ― Henry David Thoreau Unfortunately for Thoreau, humans did conquer the skies, and aviation is now a significant contributor to climate change, contributing more CO2 to the atmosphere in 2014 than the combined emissions of the 129 lowest emitting countries[i]. …
Read more “Direction of aviation’s market based mechanism still up in the air”
Despite spirited support by numerous countries including the EU, Switzerland, Mexico and South Korea, as well as industry, the new Paris climate Agreement does not give a new mandate for deeper reductions to the international aviation and shipping. This keeps the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and International Maritime Organisation (IMO) in charge to address emission reductions in both sectors in 2016.
ICAO is developing a Global Market Based Mechanism to achieve the goal of carbon neutral growth in the industry post-2020. Work is currently in progress to define which credits should be eligible to be used as offsets in this market.
Brussels, 22 October 2015. A new study by Oeko-Institut analyses for the first time potential carbon offset supply for a global market-based mechanism for international aviation emissions to be adopted in 2016. The study estimates that the entire demand could be met by carbon offsets from existing projects registered under the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism. Even if applying exclusion criteria for contentious project types, such as coal power and other non-additional projects, the supply would still be sufficient for eight years.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is busy developing a new market-based mechanism that will allow it to buy offsets to achieve the goal of limiting emissions to 2020 levels, despite rapid growth in the industry. In parallel, it has standards that aim to increase the fuel efficiency of aircraft. In 2010, ICAO agreed to achieve an annual 2% average fuel efficiency improvement to 2020. However, two new reports (links below) show that this goal is not yet being met, undermining the aviation industry’s need to reduce emissions.
