EU Airline Emissions Restrictions

Last August, the European Union (EU) voted to impose a law restricting carbon dioxide emissions from commercial airlines flying within, to and from Europe. The law went into effect on January 1 of this year and now, the United States government is trying to counteract the EU Airline Emission Restrictions, saying that the new laws are too costly for American air carriers to keep up with. The new EU law requires all air carriers on flights into and out of Europe to pay to offset their carbon emissions caused from transcontinental flights, adopting a carbon credit system that allows airlines to trade emissions produced for carbon credits to fund environmental action projects.

The law, titled the EU Emissions Trading Scheme Directive (ETS), was adopted in 2008 and establishes a cap on carbon emissions on European flights. Airlines whose flights exceed this cap are now required to buy more carbon credits – a market-based approach that the airline industry says it is not financially prepared to undertake, as the industry as a whole has declined in profits since the global economic recession began in 2008.

U.S. airlines, including the Air Transport Association of America and American Airlines, filed a lawsuit claiming that the regulations violate the Open Skies Agreement, decided in 2007 by the United States and the European Union. This agreement allows air carriers from both regions to operate flights between Europe and the U.S. and to set reasonable prices on transcontinental flights. The plaintiffs also argued that the laws are inconsistent with the Chicago Convention, an agreement decided in 1944 that grants countries sovereignty over their domestic airspace.

According to NASA, the global airline industry produces around 4 percent of the world’s carbon emissions total each year. Some experts say that carbon emissions produced at a higher altitude may have a higher negative impact on the atmosphere than emissions produced at sea level.

Some airlines have begun experimenting with alternative jet fuels, but others have not taken these steps toward environmentally friendly air travel. Some airlines also offer carbon offsetting programs, in which passengers can pay an additional fee to fund environmental projects to mitigate carbon emissions.

The global aviation industry has attempted to restrict emissions from flights since 1997, without much success. The EU law is the first major step toward setting consequences for carbon emissions, and under the new law, airlines will have to comply or face restrictions or a ban from flying to Europe. The EU’s environmental actions, including its strong participation at the COP17 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa this past December, have proved that it has firm intentions to instate policies against climate change – so it is unlikely that the EU will retract the ETS and allow other bodies, such as the U.S., an exemption.

Since the required payment for carbon credits would translate to an increase in airfare, the EU aims to hold all airlines to the same standard. Allowing some airlines to not participate in the carbon credit scheme would enable those airlines to offer lower ticket prices, creating an unfair market. In the meantime, while the U.S. attempts to negotiate with the EU, flights to Europe could be reduced or suspended. The new regulations have gathered international opposition from countries besides the U.S. as well.

The U.S. government is trying to fight the EU restrictions, arguing that the carbon offset fees are unfair and too expensive. However, these regulations are necessary in order for the airline industry to take responsibility for their emissions and eventually switch to cleaner fuels. Sign this petition on ForceChange.com to show your support for greener skies.

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Garuda seeks to dodge EU carbon tax scheme

[The Jakarta Post]. Garuda seeks to dodge EU carbon tax scheme. National airline Garuda Indonesia said that they were not willing to pay the European Union’s emission trading scheme (ETS), which charges airlines for greenhouse gases produced by their jets flying to and from the EU, a senior official said.

“We actually do not want to pay the ETS because the consequences would be that we would raise our ticket prices,” Garuda Indonesia finance director Elisa Lumbantoruan told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

It would be financially viable for Garuda, however, to pay such a tax next year, Elisa said.

In addition, the airline’s vice president for corporate communication Pujobroto said that Garuda had reported their emission budget for this year’s Jakarta–Amsterdam route, which connects in Dubai, to the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment.

Pujobroto said the airline would receive the final evaluation from the Dutch ministry in December.

“If we emit more carbon than the level allowed, we would pay the tax,” he told the Post.

However, Elisa said that they were optimistic that Garuda would not exceed the carbon cap because their aircraft were environmentally friendly.

Besides, he continued, the EU would only count the carbon emitted on the Dubai to Amsterdam leg of the route, he added.

The EU’s new aircraft emissions scheme came into force on Jan. 1 and the EU said that it would not back down from the new tax despite mounting international pressure to do so.

Several nations, such as China, India and the United States have criticized the new tax.

The ETS is an extension of a 2003 EU carbon trading scheme that covers factories, power plants and other installations. The scheme, which sets a limit on the level of emissions allowed, is a key part of EU’s climate change policy aimed at reducing global warming emissions.

Under the scheme, the facilities that emit more carbon than their prescribed limit will have to buy permits to cover their emissions.

But, if their emissions are less than the allowed limit, they would be allowed to sell spare permits from their emission allowances.

In a separate interview, Transportation Ministry spokesman Bambang Ervan said the Indonesian government was against the carbon emission scheme.

Bambang said that Indonesia was not alone as Transportation Ministries in the Southeast Asian Countries (ASEAN) were on the same page about the new tax system.

“Our decision in the last ASEAN working group last year is that we are against the ETS,” he added.

According to Garuda Indonesia’s official website, the flight to Amsterdam takes off from Jakarta everyday at 8:40 p.m., arriving in Dubai at 2 a.m. The aircraft then departs again at 3:15 a.m., arriving at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport at 8 a.m.

Elisa said that the ETS did not discourage the airline’s intention to add to its fast growing network over the next four years with new routes to Frankfurt, London, Paris and Rome.

“If the routes are profitable, we will open them,” Elisa said. (nfo)

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Climate change skepticism seeps into science classrooms

By Neela Banerjee, Washington Bureau

Los Angeles Times. Reporting from Washington—Climate change skepticism seeps into science classrooms. A flash point has emerged in American science education that echoes the battle over evolution, as scientists and educators report mounting resistance to the study of man-made climate change in middle and high schools.

Although scientific evidence increasingly shows that fossil fuel consumption has caused the climate to change rapidly, the issue has grown so politicized that skepticism of the broad scientific consensus has seeped into classrooms.

Texas and Louisiana have introduced education standards that require educators to teach climate change denial as a valid scientific position. South Dakota and Utah passed resolutions denying climate change. Tennessee and Oklahoma also have introduced legislation to give climate change skeptics a place in the classroom.

In May, a school board in Los Alamitos, Calif., passed a measure, later rescinded, identifying climate science as a controversial topic that required special instructional oversight.

"Any time we have a meeting of 100 teachers, if you ask whether they're running into pushback on teaching climate change, 50 will raise their hands," said Frank Niepold, climate education coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who meets with hundreds of teachers annually. "We ask questions about how sizable it is, and they tell us it is [sizable] and pretty persistent, from many places: your administration, parents, students, even your own family."

Against this backdrop, the National Center for Science Education, an Oakland-based watchdog group that supports the teaching of evolution through advocacy and educational materials, plans to announce on Monday that it will begin an initiative to monitor the teaching of climate science and evaluate the sources of resistance to it.

NCSE, a small, nonpartisan group of scientists, teachers, clergy and concerned individuals, rose to prominence in the last decade defending evolution in the curriculum.

The controversy around "climate change education is where evolution was 20 years ago," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of NCSE.

At that time, evolution — the long-tested scientific theory that varieties of life forms emerged through biological processes like natural selection and mutation — was patchily taught. Teaching standards have been developed since then, but it's unclear how widely evolution is taught, given teachers' fear of controversy.

Studies show that teachers often set aside evolution for fear of a backlash. Scott worries this could happen with climate science too.

"The question is self-censorship and intimidation. What you have to watch for is the 'hecklers' veto,' " she said. "If a teacher ignores a particular topic, it will likely go unnoticed."

Climate change skeptics like James Taylor, environmental policy fellow at the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank, said the pushback in schools and legislatures reflected public frustration at being told "only one side of the global warming debate — the scientifically controversial theory that humans are creating a global warming crisis."

"It is therefore not surprising that state legislatures are stepping in to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not spent in a manner that turns an important and ongoing scientific debate into a propaganda assault on impressionable students," Taylor said.

Climatologists say man-made climate change is not scientifically controversial.

Instruction on climate change is typically introduced in middle school earth science classes and in recently popular high school environmental science courses, often electives.

In 2007, science teachers said their greatest challenge was making climate change fit in with their curriculum, according to a survey by the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, a joint project of NOAA and the University of Colorado at Boulder. By 2011, the biggest concern wasn't the curriculum but the controversy, said Susan Buhr, director of the education outreach arm for the institute.

Resistance to the scientific consensus breaks down mostly along regional lines, Buhr said, with greater pushback in the South and in regions where "livelihoods have been built on extractive industries" of fossil fuels.

Attacks on evolution come largely from conservative Christians who believe in a literal reading of the biblical creation story. Climate change denial is mostly rooted in political ideology, with foes decrying it as liberal dogma, teachers say. The NCSE's Scott said that made it much harder to use the courts to protect climate science education.

New national science standards for grades K-12 are due in December. The standards — based on a framework by the National Academy of Sciences and developed by a partnership of private industry and state governments — are expected to include climate change. But some science educators predict that could heat up local and state resistance in some areas.

"You could see more states or localities challenging the topic," said Niepold, who is familiar with the NCSE initiative. "Given the polarized nature of how people take this issue, having a community organization that looks at the issue could be valuable."

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