Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Because climate change is a global problem, and aviation is a global sector oper-
ating in dozens of countries, tackling the problem needs to happen at a global level.
Yet, the difficulty of getting agreement among lots of countries is often given as the
reason for the lack of action to date, and meanwhile no agreement means no action.
Are appropriate solutions likely at the global level? Perhaps. Countries often
negotiate international protocols and conventions to tackle environmental problems,
and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC),
signed by 160 countries at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, is the classic case of an
attempt at global cooperation. The same countries signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997.
Most countries agree on the need to develop policies and implement measures to
tackle climate change, but they differ in the way that this can be done. Discussions
have taken place over the years on how to deal with emissions from aviation that
occur over the oceans - so-called 'international bunker fuels' - and which are there-
fore not allocated to any particular nation.
Since there has been no political agreement on this thorny issue, the Inter-
national Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has asked countries to try to find solu-
tions. Yet, forcing ICAO and UNFCCC to work together has been something of a
culture shock, especially for ICAO. Both are agencies of the United Nations (UN),
but there the similarity ends. While the UNFCCC is looking for solutions to an
environmental problem, ICAO exists to protect the economic interests of an indus-
try. While the decisions in the one are transparent and involve mostly environmen-
tal ministries, the other is run by transport ministries. Although tackling climate
change is being seriously addressed by the ICAO, there are many barriers to it pro-
ducing an appropriate response.
What, therefore, should be done? There is another level of trans-national
decision-making: the European Union (EU). The EU treaty has as one of its major
principles the integration of environmental protection within all sectors, as well as
sustainable development. Not responding to the problems caused by aviation would
thus mean acting against the European Union treaty. This has been recently rein-
forced by concrete messages from the Gothenburg European Council, which put
sustainable development and its three pillars (economic, environmental and social)
at the core of European Union policy.
4
At the EU level, there are some simple actions that could be implemented with
a little political will, and which would begin to tackle the environmental impact of
aviation:
•
An environmental charge for European aviation would be both feasible and
effective (Wit and Bleijenberg, 1998).
•
Intra-European flights need to contribute to the overall emission reduction tar-
get agreed by the EU in Kyoto.
•
An emissions-trading system needs more study and analysis.
•
All greenhouse gas emissions - not just CO
2
- need to be taken into account
when developing a programme on emissions.
5
It will obviously be necessary to have a global solution to a global problem for a
global industry; but the first step towards that could be an example set in Europe
