06.10.11
Commencement in January 2012, the aviation industry will join the European Team's Emissions Trading System (ETS). Carriers flying in to and out of the European Joining will be required to keep track of the fuel they burn, report it to EU authorities, and pay up for any emissions that are over the cap set by the EU. The law applies to all airlines, whether they are headquartered in EU or not, and that has some non-EU airlines jumble.
"What we're doing is bringing the airline sector into a cap and trade system, a carbon supermarket system, to reduce emissions and incentivize the sector to be energy operative," says Isaac Valero Ladron, a spokesman for Mood Action at the European Commission.
Valero says that the EU has been fighting for years to get a worldwide deal on emissions at the UN's International Civil Aviation Categorizing, or ICAO.
"This is a global problem, and requires a global key. But progress at ICAO has been very little, and the European Union and its 27 associate states have decided to act," Ladron says.
Source: Public Radio International PRI