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Global airlines have privately lobbied the EU to weaken plans to require the industry to monitor and disclose its impact on global warming from non-carbon dioxide emissions, including the vapour trails that criss-cross the skies, in a letter seen by the Financial Times.
Airlines have faced years of scrutiny over their contribution to climate change through CO₂, but the impact of other emissions, including aircraft condensation trails, or contrails, nitrogen oxides and sulphur, is less understood or monitored.
In response, the EU is introducing landmark rules to require all airlines to quantify and report the non-CO₂ emissions of flights taking off from within the bloc from January 2025, sparking a backlash from within the industry.
Willie Walsh, the director-general of the International Air Transport Association, the airline lobby group, wrote to EU politicians this month to warn of “growing concern across the airline community”, in the letter seen by the FT.
The former boss of British Airways called on Brussels to make participation in the scheme voluntary, and to significantly lessen its scope by only applying the rules to flights within the EU.
In particular, Walsh said airlines were concerned that non-CO₂ emissions cannot be calculated with the same “high certainty” as CO₂, and the proposed methodology “is feared insufficiently mature to measure non-CO₂ emissions accurately, or to help address their mitigation effectively”.
“The proposal risks creating a regulatory burden that will require airlines to provide large amounts of data for all flights, with an insufficient potential for positive environmental impact,” he said.
The EU already requires airlines to disclose their CO₂ impact and levies a charge on intra-European emissions.
Environmental group Transport & Environment said Iata is using scientific uncertainty as a way to stop the full climate impact of flying from being disclosed.
Given that the worst impact from non-CO₂ emissions is thought to come from long-haul flying, excluding global airlines from the scheme would be counter-productive, it added.
“Non-CO₂ emissions were recognised as a climate problem 25 years ago. But with delay tactics such as these, airlines are attempting to kill off any action that would allow them to address the issue,” said Jo Dardenne, aviation director of Transport & Environment.
In a statement, Iata confirmed it was “very concerned” with aspects of the EU’s move to monitor non-CO₂ emissions, and added that “the science around non-CO₂ impacts is highly uncertain and evolving rapidly”. It pointed to a recent Royal Society of Chemistry paper that called for “better quantification of the actual effects” of non-CO₂ emissions before “definitive courses of action” are taken.
The EU have been approached for comment.
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