SUSTAINED HUMAN flight only became a reality with the invention of the internal combustion engine powered by fossil fuel. Now, just over a century after the Wright brothers first took to the air, it seems that the widespread use of fossil fuels is causing an excess of CO2 emissions in the Earth’s atmosphere
resulting in climate change that could threaten life on the planet.
Occasioned by this phenomenon, later this month South Africa will host the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 17) in Durban. High on the agenda at COP 17 will be the conclusion of a comprehensive climate protection agreement for the period after 2012 when the Kyoto Protocol is due to expire.
At COP 17, an attempt will be made to get the world’s industrial nations to sign up for a reduction in Greenhouse Gases. Although a country like South Africa is not classifiable as a major industrial power, it ranks as one of the dirtiest energy producers in the world through its reliance on coal for electricity generation and liquid fuel production.
The country contributes 1,5% to global emissions and is ranked 12th highest on the global emissions list. South Africa is, therefore, one of the countries that is being looked at by the international community to dramatically reduce its Greenhouse Gas emissions. While the international community haggles about measures to mitigate climate change, some countries, as well as nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), are moving ahead and either promulgating their own Greenhouse Gas emission reduction standards or establishing methods of tracking these emissions. The European Union has launched its Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) in terms of which emitters of carbon dioxide within the EU must monitor and report these emissions and where they exceed their set targets must purchase carbon offset credits from an emission trading exchange.
The World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Council for Sustainable Development (WCSD) and other stakeholders have developed the so-called Greenhouse Gas Protocol which establishes worldwide Greenhouse Gas accounting and reporting standards for business. This protocol is being imposed on companies throughout the world as a corporate governance requirement.
In South Africa, the Department of Finance, always keen to exploit another tax-generating opportunity, recently issued a discussion document proposing the introduction of Carbon Tax legislation on businesses that emit Greenhouse Gases. It is noteworthy that all these initiatives emanate from outside of the aviation industry. However, the question on the minds of many aviation business owners and aviation sector investors is how is the global aviation industry, which contributes some 3% of global overall Greenhouse Gas emissions, responding to the issue of Greenhouse emissions and planning to reduce its carbon footprint? Unfortunately, the answer to this question is – “not well”.
Due to fears over the potential costs that such measures will have on an already minimally profitable industry, aviation regulators, stakeholder bodies and the industry itself have chosen to adopt a non-urgent, almost wait and see approach to the issue. As a result of this approach, the industry both internationally, as well as in South Africa, is at risk of losing control over the emission standards and reduction measures that will be applied to it. While national governments and other entities move ahead in developing non-aviation specific regulatory standards for C02 emissions, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), the international rulemaking body for international civil aviation, is taking an inordinate
amount of time in developing CO2 emission standards for aircraft engines.
Although, ICAO invariably takes a long time to develop any aviation non-security-related standard, this is not the time or issue on which to dally. Last year, the ICAO Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP) set 2013 as the target for completing the CO2 standard. But in July this year, the working group tasked with developing the metric on which the standard will be based, failed to reach an agreement, instead forwarding rival proposals to a steering group meeting.
The working group also proposed a timetable that would delay completion of the standard to 2015. This is admittedly a technically complex and politically sensitive issue, but to take another four years in developing an international standard is just too long and allows other regulators and revenue-collecting entities the opportunity to impose their requirements and taxes on aviation. Unfortunately, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which represents the commercial interests of the global travel and airline industries, also seems to be taking a relaxed and very long term view of the issue. IATA has developed a four pillar strategy to guide the efforts of the airline industry on emission reduction which proposes voluntary emission reduction targets to be phased in over the next 10 to 30 years.
Although there is nothing wrong with the proposed IATA reduction targets, IATA goes on to recommend that national governments refrain from implementing emission reduction measures on airlines until ICAO has completed its engine emission standards. However, it does not seem that bodies like IATA are putting enough pressure on ICAO to finalise its development of emission standards and reduction targets.
There does not seem to be sufficient realisation on the part of IATA that many national governments might not be prepared to wait another couple of years for ICAO to finish its work and that these governments might move ahead to make generic emission requirements applicable to aviation. IATA and other bodies such as IFALPA need to exert much greater pressure on ICAO over this matter. There are already clear signs of what can occur when generic emission reduction measures are applied to aviation in the absence of industry specific standards.
Current events in the EU, where European airlines plan to spend hundreds of millions of Euros over the next few years on purchasing carbon offset credits in terms of the EU ETS, and US carriers flying to Europe are squaring up to challenge these requirements, are indicative of what can happen when generic and unsuitable requirements are applied to the aviation business. There are many other examples both in South Africa and other parts of the world where aviation has been prejudiced by tardiness of the aviation regulators to implement aviation-specific standards prior to generic regulatory requirements being imposed. So, post COP 17, the South African, as well as the aviation sectors in other parts of the world that are not already subject to CO2 controls, should not be surprised if unsatisfactory emission reduction requirements and taxes are foisted on them.
Unfortunately, the smell of the jet fuel is that we either quickly take ownership of this issue or we struggle to live with someone else’s rules.
