'OPEN SKIES' AVIATION ANGER
The European Union is planning to back an aviation deal with the US
that it hopes will boost the number of people flying across the Atlantic, only
weeks after it agreed on ambitious targets to reduce its contribution to global
warming.
EU transport ministers meet tomorrow to approve the "open
skies" pact negotiated with the US - a move that will increase transatlantic
carbon dioxide emissions.
The deal would lift restrictions from October
28 on what transatlantic routes airlines can offer, which should help cut air
fares.
The pact will allow European airlines to fly from anywhere in the EU
to any point in the US, shedding current strict rules that do not allow them to
charge what they like.
The EU said this would reduce the cost of
tickets, putting an extra 26 million people on transatlantic flights. Just under
50 million travellers now fly those routes.
But that will also add an
extra 3.56 tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere as the EU tries to curb emissions
across the board and encourage the US to do the same, the European Federation
for Transport and Environment says.
The group said it had written to
ministers asking them to vote against the deal, saying it would "clearly be
wrong to fail to consider the environmental impact of the open skies agreement".
It said the pact removed the main tool governments had to reduce CO2
emissions because it forbade fuel taxes on transatlantic flights - in line with
international aviation law.
Although aviation contributes a small share
of the EU's overall greenhouse gas emissions - around three per cent - the
sector is growing rapidly as a wave of low-cost airlines have taken Europeans to
the skies for bargain basement prices over the past 15 years.
According
to the EU's own analysis, emissions from the EU's international flights will
have increased 150% from 1990 by 2012, cutting into more than a quarter of the
EU's CO2 reductions as it tries to meet Kyoto Protocol targets.
This is
why the EU's environment chief in December proposed to cap and trade all airline
emissions - including international flights - from 2012, immediately sparking
protest from US officials who warned that this would breach international
law.
But negotiations on the "open skies" deal skirted around this entirely.
