During the meeting of the AEA, European airline chiefs from major airlines including British Airways, SAS Scandinavian Airlines, TAP Portugal, and Virgin Atlantic Airways reaffirmed their commitment to an environmentally responsible airline sector but warned that, with the 2012 introduction date fast approaching, obstacles to the effective inclusion of aviation in the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme would become increasingly apparent in 2011.
The members of the Board of the AEA were assembled for their first meeting under the Chairmanship of Steve Ridgway, Chief Executive of Virgin Atlantic. They reasserted AEA’s longstanding support of an environmentally effective and economically efficient ETS, as a precursor to a global scheme.
“The 1 January 2012 start date for EU ETS is fast approaching, but there are still many critical areas which need to be resolved”, said Steve Ridgway. “It’s imperative that the Commission fixes these issues to ensure that the Emissions Trading Scheme works as always envisaged, and avoids creating unfair market distortions or undermining its environmental effectiveness”.
If aviation’s contribution to society is not to be diminished in the quest for lower environmental impact, instruments such as ETS need to be complemented by clean technology, said the AEA Chairman, “We call on the EU to stimulate the development of step change technologies – putting Europe at the forefront of this new industrial revolution – critical amongst which are sustainable alternative fuels with their obvious potential to reduce aviation’s carbon footprint”.
The AEA CEOs expressed their readiness to cooperate fully with the European Commission in working out the necessary conditions for an effective transition to new generation fuels. “The Treasuries of EU Member States will be receiving massive incomes from ETS. It is only common sense that these revenues should provide the investment needed to further the aims of an environmental policy”, said Mr Ridgway.
The AEA also put forward the idea of using funding for the Single European Sky ATM Research project (also known as the EU Single European Sky initiative) to provide the next generation of Air Traffic Management, and the research and development effort to break aviation’s current dependency on fossil fuels, stabilise the energy supply chain and deliver more quickly a lower carbon future for the aviation sector.
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