As part of the climate week in New York, the UN launched the “Go Climate Neutral Now” initiative- a new online platform to purchase carbon offsets generated by its Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The initiative attempts to boost demand for CDM credits on the voluntary carbon market and for the aviation sector but fails to dodge the sale of bogus carbon offsets.
Brussels, 22 September 2015. Today, at the climate week in New York, the UN launched the “Climate Credit Store”- a new online platform to purchase carbon offsets generated by its Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The initiative attempts to boost demand for CDM credits on the voluntary carbon market and for the aviation sector but fails to dodge the sale of bogus carbon offsets.
The inclusion of international flights into the EU’s carbon market was one factor that created momentum for a global, rather than regional, measure to address aviation emissions. Recognizing Europe’s potential importance in the ongoing negotiations towards a global market based measure, open letters from fifteen NGOs across Europe were sent to EU’s transport and environment/climate ministers, calling on them to step up in promoting emissions reductions from aviation – a fast-growing and polluting sector.
Climate change is happening. Global average temperatures have already increased by 0.8ºC above preindustrial levels. Current trends imply a warming of 2.9-5.2ºC by the end of the century, which, even at the low end of the range, will cause great impacts on the planet and threaten many areas of human life, including health, food security, economic growth, societal change, and drinking water. 2015 is a key year for global efforts to combat climate change and keep warming under 2ºC, the warming limit agreed in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) intends to adopt a global market-based mechanism to reduce emissions from international aviation at its 2016 meeting. A series of regional workshops – Global Aviation Dialogs, or GLADs – over the month of April will put political discussions on this process into the next gear. Given the slow pace and lack of ambition so far, the upcoming GLADs will provide the opportunity for EU countries to start aligning positions to ensure that a future mechanisms does what it is set out to do and is not merely a greenwash for the aviation industry.
Accounting of emissions will be a cornerstone of a future climate treaty and is hugely important for the integrity of carbon markets as well as keeping us on track to limit global warming below 2°C. Lima will need to lay grounds for a rigorous accounting framework and robust unit quality requirements. It will also need to establish consistency to the ICAO process that is developing a global market based mechanism for aviation emissions.
Since 1997, ICAO, the UN organization for air travel has dragged its feet to implement binding climate targets (learn more). For many years, the European Union had signalled to the international community that it would place unilateral restrictions on aviation emissions if ICAO would not take stronger action and commit to a plan to reduce …
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