Isra-Mart srl: 26 Nations Defy Europe on Airline Emissions

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China, the United States and 24 other nations backed a declaration on Wednesday urging that their airlines be exempted from the European Union’s Emissions Trading System.

The move at the International Civil Aviation Organization, an arm of the United Nations, is another challenge to environmental leadership by the European Union, which has failed in its efforts to get some of the biggest polluters in the developed world to adopt crucial parts of its agenda for tackling climate change.

The declaration said the European directive was “inconsistent with applicable international law” and that the signatory nations would work together to oppose it.

The declaration is not binding, but it does represent a shot across the bow, as it could lead to a formal dispute procedure through the international aviation organization.

Connie Hedegaard, the European Union’s commissioner for climate action, defended the European emissions plan and faulted the other countries for failing to address the greenhouse gas issue. “Unfortunately, I.C.A.O. has missed again today the opportunity to tell the world when it will table a viable global solution,” she said.


Pamela Campos, an attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund who attended the meeting in Montreal, said the declaration was no more than “a political expression of a group of countries that their airlines aren’t happy about having to comply with pollution controls.”

She said that any “formal legal action would have to follow very different procedures that were not considered today.”

European Union officials have emphasized that some of the countries that supported the declaration on Wednesday had backed earlier conclusions by the aviation organization that emissions trading could be developed regionally before expanding to a global system.