ICAO looking at four options for potential emissions accord

ICAO council president Roberto Kobeh Gonzalez told Reuters last week that the UN body is considering four options to manage carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions produced by aviation.

Governments around the world have been encouraging the EU to drop aviation's inclusion in its Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), instead urging EU leaders to enter negotiations at ICAO on a mutually agreed global scheme for controlling airline CO2 emissions. Gonzalez conceded to Reuters that finding such a worldwide solution would be "a very difficult exercise, very complicated."

Four options are under consideration for a potential global agreement, he said. According to the newswire, these include mandatory CO2 emissions offsetting by airlines, mandatory offsetting "with some revenue-generating mechanism," a cap-and-trade system in which all aviation emissions are traded and, finally, a cap-and-trade system pegged to an emissions baseline.

Article Source : ATW Daily News