As part of the climate week in New York, the UN launched the “Go Climate Neutral Now” initiative- a new online platform to purchase carbon offsets generated by its Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The initiative attempts to boost demand for CDM credits on the voluntary carbon market and for the aviation sector but fails to dodge the sale of bogus carbon offsets.
The inclusion of international flights into the EU’s carbon market was one factor that created momentum for a global, rather than regional, measure to address aviation emissions. Recognizing Europe’s potential importance in the ongoing negotiations towards a global market based measure, open letters from fifteen NGOs across Europe were sent to EU’s transport and environment/climate ministers, calling on them to step up in promoting emissions reductions from aviation – a fast-growing and polluting sector.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) intends to adopt a global market-based mechanism to reduce emissions from international aviation at its 2016 meeting. A series of regional workshops – Global Aviation Dialogs, or GLADs – over the month of April will put political discussions on this process into the next gear. Given the slow pace and lack of ambition so far, the upcoming GLADs will provide the opportunity for EU countries to start aligning positions to ensure that a future mechanisms does what it is set out to do and is not merely a greenwash for the aviation industry.
Today, the European Commission (EC) has published a first glimpse of the mitigation contributions the EU intends to contribute to the Paris Protocol. The Communication launched today entitled “The Paris Protocol – A blueprint for tackling global climate change beyond 2020” includes a proposal for the EU’s proposed Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDCs) prepared in…
Accounting of emissions will be a cornerstone of a future climate treaty and is hugely important for the integrity of carbon markets as well as keeping us on track to limit global warming below 2°C. Lima will need to lay grounds for a rigorous accounting framework and robust unit quality requirements. It will also need to establish consistency to the ICAO process that is developing a global market based mechanism for aviation emissions.
At this year’s ICAO Assembly in September 2013, Parties are supposed to agree on a Framework for market-based measures (MBMs) to address international aviation emissions and on the feasibility of a global MBM. But countries are far from agreeing how such MBMs should look like. The current preferred option is to simply use offsets to…
This year is a crucial one for countries to finally address emissions from international aviation, which is responsible for 4.9% of man-made global warming. The Kyoto Protocol requires Parties to find solutions to mitigate emissions from aviation by working through the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Since Kyoto however, ICAO has proved to be incapable…
Kaisa Amaral, Communications Director
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Carbon pricing 
International transport 
Climate governance 
Fair climate action