Environment minister slams ‘unacceptable’ EU efforts to impose carbon levy on flights
The international row over the EU’s decision to include aviation emissions in its cap-and-trade scheme escalated further this week, after senior Indian officials warned that the bloc’s stance could undermine international climate change negotiations.
The EU has repeatedly rejected calls from other countries, such as India, China, the US and Russia, urging it to shelve the controversial plans. The bloc maintains it will only reverse legislation requiring airlines to hold tradeable carbon allowances to cover their emissions if the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) makes good on long-standing commitments to deliver a global mechanism for curbing emissions from the aviation industry.
However, governments opposed to the EU’s position met earlier this year to discuss retaliatory “countermeasures”, including new levies on European airlines, while a number of countries have signaled they could order their airlines to defy the EU’s rules.
The row intensified further this week, after India’s environment minister, Jayanthi Natarajan, signaled that the stand-off could spill over into the ongoing international climate change negotiations.
News agency Reuters quoted Natarajan as saying the EU’s emissions levy represented a “deal-breaker” for the UN climate talks, which will continue in Qatar at the end of this year.
“For the environment ministry, for me, it is a deal-breaker because you simply cannot bring this into climate change discourse and disguise unilateral trade measures under climate change,” Natarajan said. “I strongly believe that, as far as climate change discussions are concerned, this is unacceptable.”
The comments came as India reportedly ordered its airlines to defy the EU rules, potentially opening them up to massive fines of €100 for each tonne of carbon emissions for which they fail to hold an equivalent EU carbon allowance.
The EU has consistently rejected calls to scrap or delay its plans, and Brussels again insisted this week it would only exempt airlines from the EU emissions trading scheme if a similarly ambitious global mechanism for reducing emissions is brought into force.
You’ve got to love it. Two of the most populous countries on the globe, India and China, have both told the Euroweenies to stuff it. ha ha ha ha ha
It has to be patently obvious to the most casual observer that all this carbon tax BS is just ‘tax’ and nothing more. There is never a limit to the greed of government kleptocrats. This was merely one more channel they hoped to open into our wallets.
Do these idiots have any idea how much the people of the world are laughing at them? Carbon trading only got as far as it did because everyone thought it was a comedy skit!