Europe's Eco-Friendlier Skies | What Causes Global Warming

Posted by Michael Straus on December 28th, 2011 filed in Global Warming

With 2012 comes yet another new fee tacked onto your airplane ticket price–if you’re flying to or from Europe. This one, though, is intended to help save the planet from global warming. It’s an aviation emissions tax, an initiative held up by court action since its adoption by the European Union two years ago.

This new tax is expected to boost each EU passenger fare from $3-$15. Revenues raised by the new tax, it’s been calculated, could add up to $26 billion over the rest of the decade. The funds will be invested in efforts to slow global warming, and should spur greener technologies in the aviation industry, which is responsible for roughly 3 percent of all global carbon dioxide emissions.

Europe decided to create its own aviation carbon taxation system only after the rest of the world failed to act. Negotiations overseen by a United Nations agency aimed at creating an international carbon cap-and-trade pact have dragged on for 10 years.

Opposition to the EU’s tax is especially strong regarding its provision that taxes a jetliner’s mileage from the moment it pushes off from the exit gate–wherever the flight originates, not just in the EU. Global airlines complain that forcing them to pay the EU tax infringes on national sovereignty and conflicts with international aviation treaties. And according to the New York Times, the U.S., China and other countries might snub their noses at the tax and litigate further, and might even strike back with a trade war directed at the EU.

Not every airline has come out against the EU tax. Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic, for example, says it “has long been a supporter of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme as the first step towards a future global solution ensuring aviation plays its part in meeting climate change targets.” Branson has been an outspoken advocate for greening the airline industry.

What happens after the new tax goes into effect remains to be seen. Europe, meantime, remains defiant, saying in effect that doing something about air travel emissions is better than doing nothing at all. And officials say they’ll gladly modify their cap-and-trade system when the rest of the world catches up to their green leadership.

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