Planes and pollution
Trouble in the air, double on the ground
China objects to European efforts to curb its airlines’ emissions
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Feb 11th 2012 | HONG KONG | from the print edition
the skies were clear, you’d see the planes
If
COULD a fresh row over airline emissions lead to a global trade war? That is the scariest
prospect raised by China’s objections this week to the European Union’s new plan for
controlling greenhouse-gas emissions from aeroplanes. The scheme, which came into effect
on January 1st, forces airlines flying into the EU to buy tradable carbon credits as part of its
broader emissions-trading system.
Many countries are unhappy with the policy, but China’s proclamations this week—official
news agencies report that China has “banned” its airlines from participation without specific
government approval—appear to be an escalation. Not least because Chinese and European
officials are expected to meet for high-level talks in Beijing next week. It also raises the
temperature of the row in advance of a meeting of 26 dissenting countries, including India,
China, Russia and America, in Moscow on February 21st.
As an effort to make airlines pay for their pollution, the EU’s action is overdue. In global
terms, their emissions are modest, about 3% of the total. Yet they are rising fast: between
2005 and 2010 they grew by 11.2%. Meanwhile the UN’s International Civil Aviation
Organisation (ICAO), which was charged with taking steps to mitigate them, has done
nothing of the sort. In 2004 it ruled out negotiating a global deal to curb the emissions of all
airlines, and instead recommended that countries include their airlines in whatever national
mitigation scheme they had in place. In 2010 it changed its mind, announcing that it would,
after all, initiate a “framework”—whatever that might be—for a global deal to address airline
emissions.
Unconvinced, the EU decided to push ahead with its plan to make all flights into the EU
subject to the emissions-trading scheme (ETS). This is now enshrined in European law. The
only ways foreign governments could extricate their airlines from it would be to stop them
flying into the EU, or make them subject to an equivalent mitigation regime of their own.
Imperative or imperialism?
The main objection to the EU’s policy is that it applies to air-miles clocked up outside
European airspace. The EU argues that its approach is consistent with ICAO’s own guidelines
and that it would be impossible to regulate otherwise. But the dissenters claim this infringes
their sovereignty and breaks the terms of the Chicago Convention, which has regulated
aviation since 1944. A group of American airlines therefore launched a legal challenge to the
policy; but it was dismissed by the European Court of Justice in December. There was a
precedent supporting the Europeans: American green laws insist that ships docking locally
be double hulled, even though that forces ship owners to pay for unwanted double hulls on
international waters en route to American ports.
China also claims that the EU’s policy transgresses UN climate-change agreements which
ordain that mitigation costs should be lower for developing countries than rich ones. Yet,
even setting aside the difficult issue of how much of a free ride China can expect, the EU’s
policy applies to individual companies, not countries, for which there is no such
dispensation.
It is a troubling spat. But there is at least time to negotiate a way out. The airlines are not
due to be billed for their emissions until April 2013. Even then, they will have to pay for only
15% of them. Under the ETS, they are required to buy tradable permits for a gradually
rising portion of their emissions: this year the EU will give the airlines permits to cover 85%
of them.
The airlines, naturally, say the cost will be onerous nonetheless. The China Air Transport
Association, which represents China’s airlines, estimated the scheme would cost them 800m
yuan ($127m) this year, and more than three times as much by 2020. It may well be less.
EU officials say the costs of the scheme, if passed on to passengers, would add no more
than around €2.50 ($3.30) to the price of a one-way ticket between Europe and China. By
slapping ETS surcharges on tickets, as some non-Chinese airlines have done, they may
even profit from the scheme.
The best solution would be through the ICAO. In November it resolved to accelerate steps to
introduce its own mitigation efforts. It has drawn up a shortlist of options, including a
carbon tax or cap-and-trade scheme that would apply to all airlines.
China’s rulers should meanwhile note that, besides cooking the climate, aviation also causes
local pollution, which poor countries suffer more grievously than rich ones. Researchers at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cambridge University have estimated the
impact on the ground of emissions from aircraft flying at cruise altitude (about 35,000 feet),
a problem typically ignored by regulations. They have shown that emissions of nitrous
oxides (NOX) and sulphur oxides (SOX) combine with gases already in the atmosphere to
create very fine particles that are especially dangerous to human health. Such pollution is a
huge problem in China (see article).
The researchers found that though most aviation emissions currently occur over North
America and Europe, about 3,500 of the 8,000 resultant premature deaths per year happen
in China and India. Many variables explain this, but the most important is that farming in
these heavily populated countries (unlike that in America) emits huge amounts of ammonia.
This interacts with the NOX and SOX to produce the dangerously small particulate pollution
that leads to premature deaths. With air travel in China booming, the worry is that this
underreported public-health problem will also boom.