West of England MEP Jullie Girling has played a leading role in securing an historic international deal to help cut damaging pollution from air travel.
She led a delegation of MEPs to the Assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organisation in Montreal, Canada, where a deal was hammered out late yesterday (Thurs) on a new Global Market-Based Measure for reducing CO2 emissions from aviation.
Mrs Girling, Conservative MEP for the West of England and Gibraltar, said: “I am proud of what we achieved. It was a tough negotiation but we got what was needed in the end,”
The EU’s Commission, Council and Parliament will all now consider how the agreement can be adopted into law; but the deal is being hailed as a major step forward in efforts to curtail carbon dioxide emissions from air transport, which have spiralled during the past 15 years.
Without intervention it is feared aviation would be responsible for 40 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions by the middle of this century.
Mrs Girling, environment spokesman for the European Conservatives and Reformists Group in the Parliament, said: “There is still much work to be done, but this sets a an agreed framework for the future progress to build on.
“The global measure is important in the context of the recent climate change agreement in Paris, which excluded aviation.
“I’m pleased to see that the sector has joined the rest of industry in the fight against climate change. It is important that all sectors share the responsibility of keeping global warming well below 2°Celsius.
“Now additional effort is needed if aviation emissions are to be in line with reductions from other sectors.
Background
Emissions from international aviation have grown by 76 % since 1990. By 2050 this sector is expected to triple in size while a recent study of the European Parliament found that airplane emissions could be responsible for almost 40% of total greenhouse emissions in 2050.
A delegation of four MEPs went to Montreal on the occasion of the 39th session of ICAO Assembly to observe the negotiations as part of the EU delegation and to meet with ICAO high-level representatives, ICAO Members and Observers, industry and NGOs. They discussed the need for effective reductions of CO2 emissions by aviation, a sector left outside of the COP21 Paris Agreement on climate change.
The delegation, led by Ms Julie Girling, was composed of MEP Andor Deli (EPP, HU), Jens Nilsson (S&D, SE) and Bas Eickhout (Greens/EFA, NL).
The “stop-the-clock” legislation adopted in 2014 suspended the application of ETS to intercontinental flights up to 2016 in order to give more time to ICAO to act at global level. The ETS would be applied to international flights again from 2017 onwards in case there was no agreement in ICAO this autumn on a GMBM.
