Reactions to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Council’s decision to adjust the baseline for the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (Corsia) to reflect the COVID-19-related drop in 2020 demand perfectly encapsulate the air transport emissions dilemma: on the one hand, airline survival, and with it jobs, economic growth and connectivity; on the other, the pressing need to cut CO2 emissions.
The ICAO Council listened to the air transport industry’s pleas for the scheme to be changed to reflect the post-COVID-19 reality when it decided June 30 to set 2019 emissions as the offset target for the program’s initial three-year phase. Under the initial Corsia resolution, the voluntary pilot phase, set to run from 2021 through 23, was to have been based on average CO2 emissions from 2019 and 2020 combined.
- ICAO Council agrees to adjust Corsia baseline to reflect COVID-19 effects
- Airlines had contended the dramatic drop in 2020 emissions skewed the scheme
- Environmental campaigners express disappointment at the move
The program requires the offset of any emissions above the baseline so that participating airlines are carbon-neutral beyond the baseline year.
But the coronavirus pandemic brought the global air transport industry to a virtual standstill. In March, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) began lobbying for ICAO to modify the program to reflect the situation.
Almost four months later, the first extremely tentative signs of recovery are visible in the industry, with passenger demand in May measured in revenue passenger kilometers 91.3% lower than in May 2019, a slight uptick from the 94% annual decline recorded in April, IATA said July 1.
Even if some slight improvements are underway, aviation industry emissions in 2020 will be dramatically lower than predicted precoronavirus. Airlines, unsurprisingly, have welcomed ICAO’s move.
“[The] decision is important because, at a time of extreme volatility, it provides immediate certainty and a clear path forward for the successful implementation of Corsia,” said IATA.
“This will help ensure the sustainable development of international aviation and avoid an inappropriate economic burden on our sector, which continues to reel from the COVID-19 crisis,” says Thomas Reynaert, managing director of Airlines For Europe (A4E). The group’s members include Air France-KLM; International Airlines Group, the parent company of Aer Lingus, British Airways, Iberia, Level and Vueling; Lufthansa Group; Finnair; and low-cost carriers EasyJet and Ryanair.
Reynaert says A4E’s members had reported traffic down 89% compared with June 2019.
“Using 2019 emissions will . . . maintain a level of ambition comparable to that which underpinned Corsia’s adoption: Net emissions will be stabilized at a level close to the precrisis forecast of around 600 million tonnes of CO2,” IATA says.
Aviation’s impact on the environment, already under increased scrutiny in recent years, has come into even sharper focus as the travel restrictions brought in to manage the pandemic led to largely empty skies. Some governments have taken the opportunity to link financial help for stricken airlines to renewed environmental efforts.
The French and Dutch governments have both agreed to multibillion-euro bailouts for Air France-KLM’s airlines, but have attached emissions reduction and sustainability, as well as competitiveness conditions, to the aid.
France’s economy ministry said Air France must cut the volume of its CO2 emissions from domestic flights by 50% by the end of 2024, as it unveiled a €7 billion ($7.9 billion) bailout package in April, as part of a broader objective of cutting CO2 emissions per passenger kilometer by 50% by 2030 compared with 2005 levels.
“Where there are rail alternatives to an internal flight of under 2.5 hr., these internal flights should be cut drastically and in fact limited to transfers to a hub,” Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said at the time, describing it as a “new and drastic condition” that should lead to a reevaluation of transport options within France.
Although the move to link financial help to emissions action has been broadly welcomed, some environmental campaigners say the conditions do not go far enough.
The Brussels-based lobby group Transport & Environment says reducing emissions from domestic French flights by 50% by 2024 would only cut French aviation emissions by 0.8%, and that the condition should be expanded to routes where rail journeys under 5 hr. exist, which it said would make the reduction 4.5%.
The organization is part of a group of nongovernmental organizations making up the International Coalition for Sustainable Aviation (ICSA), which also criticized the ICAO decision, saying: “The ICAO Council’s decision to further deflate the ambition of Corsia is a betrayal to future generations, and a slap in the face to the multilateral work to build the program.”
It added: “Airlines, in pushing for this change, have undermined their own case for international action. Given ICAO’s unwillingness to lead, ICSA urges governments to adopt national measures to support the climate ambition that is needed.”
The U.S.-based Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) also criticized ICAO’s move.
“With offset obligations likely suspended for the pilot phase, today’s decision leaves the field wide open for governments—at local, state and national levels to require airlines to integrate climate action into their economic recovery,” wrote Annie Petsonk, EDF international counsel, on June 30. “That could, in turn, leave the industry with the very patchwork of regulations it fears.”
The EDF also called into question the legitimacy of the 36-member ICAO Council “unilaterally” deciding to change the baseline without fully consulting the more than 190 ICAO member states.
“[The move] set a troubling precedent for the legitimacy of future decision-making by the [United Nation’s] aviation body,” Petsonk wrote. “As airlines scramble to recover from the COVID-19 crisis, they can’t afford to ignore the looming global crisis of climate change. Real leadership means setting the aviation sector on a path toward net zero climate impacts as swiftly as possible. The sooner the costs of carbon control are included in the costs of doing business, the sooner new technologies will be developed.”
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