There are strong market incentives for airlines to improve efficiency, which can decrease emissions.
After decades of increasingly stringent emission standards for light vehicles, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is finally getting around to closer scrutiny of commercial airplane emissions. The proposed emissions standards would become effective for newly-manufactured aircraft engines beginning in 2013.
The modest U.S. proposal comes after a lawsuit began Tuesday in Europe’s highest court by U.S. airlines challenging the EU’s right to limit their CO2 emissions via a “cap and trade” system where airlines have to buy the right to pollute beyond decreasing emissions levels. The EU is vigorously contesting the lawsuit.
The European Union led by the Untied Kingdom and backed by France, Spain, Sweden, Poland, and Denmark, along with an international coalition of environmental organizations, defended the law integrating aviation into the EU emissions trading system (EU-ETS) at a hearing in front of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
All strongly rejected the airlines’ contention that aviation emissions can only be addressed by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO); and that the system amounts to a unilateral tax.
Simply put critics say American airlines have a long history of actively seeking to disrupt all measures to cut climate changing emissions. The legal case is another cynical attempt to derail a modest and cost effective climate initiative.
The new EPA standards, notably lacking a CO2 component that automakers are subject to via fuel economy rules, were either previously adopted by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), or agreed on at ICAO’s Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP) in 2010.
Included in the proposal are two new tiers of more stringent emission standards for oxides of nitrogen (NOx). These are referred to as Tier 6 (or CAEP/6) standards and Tier 8 (or CAEP/8) standards.
According to EPA U.S. commercial airlines contribute 2% of domestic GHG emissions. Globally, aviation accounts for 3% of total GHG emissions and 2% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. There is of course a strong free market incentive for airlines to improve fuel efficiency.
