Business | Aviation
IATA slams European move on green tax
Airline body calls on EU to abandon punitive measures on carriers and approach the issue from a global viewpoint.
- Staff Report
- Published: 00:05 July 17, 2008
- A Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcon flies on the second day of the Farnborough International Air Show in south England ON Wednesday.
- Image Credit: Reuters
Dubai: The International Air Transport Association (IATA), an industry group representing 230 airlines, on Wednesday said that uncoordinated green policies have "hijacked good sense" in Europe and called on governments to abandon punitive environment taxes.
IATA said European governments should instead support global environment solutions that will actually reduce aviation's two per cent of global carbon emissions.
About the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) for the aviation sector, the group said the regional bloc's "unilateral approach is wrong".
"Instead of cleaning up the environment, this will create an international legal mess. States outside Europe are already threatening legal action. Why should a US carrier have to pay Europe for emissions over US territory? Going global is the only way to success," IATA director-general Giovanni Bisignani said while addressing briefing on sustainable aviation at Farnborough.
He said the drafters of the Kyoto Protocol understood this and tasked the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to deal with aviation and the environment.
"But this wisdom did not make it to the European Parliament. Even as France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the EU signed a G8 declaration reconfirming ICAO's role in delivering a global solution, the European Parliament moved in the opposite direction by voting for a regional ETS. Good sense has been hijacked by uncoordinated green policies," Bisignani said.
IATA has asserted that taxes do not reduce emissions and only better operations and technology can do that.
"The airline industry is in crisis. With a fuel bill of $190 billion - one third of its costs - saving fuel is a matter of survival. Still Europe is fixated on punitive measures supposedly designed to reduce emissions. There is a rush to implement taxes, taxes and more taxes. They all have an environment label, but do nothing to reduce emissions," Bisignani said.
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