India to urge airlines to opt out of EU carbon scheme

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Exclusive: India to urge airlines to opt out of EU carbon scheme

By Anurag Kotoky

NEW DELHI | Tue Mar 20, 2012 8:09am EDT

(Reuters) - India will urge its airlines not to take part in the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), a senior official said, the latest salvo in an escalating row over an EU law requiring all flights in and out of Europe to pay for their emissions.

China in February said its airlines were barred from participating in the scheme unless they get government approval to do so. Beijing has also suspended the purchase of $14 billion worth of planes for Europe's Airbus due to the dispute.

India does not yet plan to ask airlines to cancel Airbus purchases, but that is a possibility if the dispute escalates, the Indian official said.

The official, with direct knowledge of talks between the EU and other countries on the issue, told Reuters that India would soon ask local airlines not to share emissions data with the bloc or buy any carbon credits.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/20/us-india-eu-emission-idUSBRE82J0D320120320

[Dead_Parrot]

1. An analysis: Airline CO2 friction is hint of new climate politics

(Reuters) - Threats of retaliation by China and India against a European Union plan to charge airlines for their carbon emissions is misplaced, given their weak legal case and a drift towards more such unilateral climate action.

Countries in Durban at the end of last year topped off years of lumbering U.N. talks by agreeing that a new climate protocol should come into force by 2020, with more vagueness about exactly what that should be, leaving a vacuum in national action in the meantime.

That slow rate of progress underscores how multilateral climate action has faded over the past decade.

It also underlines why it would be madness to expect the U.N. body, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), to galvanize global action to curb carbon emissions from passenger jets, as countries asked them to do 15 years ago.

More: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/20/us-climate-aviation-idUSBRE82J0RC20120320