Putting Aviation into EU ETS: A Review
This article will address the current debate on the inclusion of aviation sector into EU Emission Trading System (ETS). This policy has created high-level conflict between the EU, the United States and China. I will attempt to defend the EU’s initiatives by using the perspective of utilitarian ecology. After getting conclusion from this discussion, I will connect it to my reflection on two governance-oriented courses (International Governance and Civil Society; International Organizations: Theory and Practice).
EU implemented the inclusion of aircraft into EU ETS since the beginning of 2012. EU ETS itself has begun since 2005 and now has covered 11000 installations in 30 European countries (European Commission, 2012). The main aim of this cap-and-trade system is the cost-efficient delivery of predictable carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reductions. By limiting the overall amount of permitted emissions, apportioning this overall limit amongst installations via the allocation of “emissions allowances”, and allowing these allowances to be traded between installations, this market-based instrument aims to apportion emissions abatement to where it is can be achieved at the lowest cost.
This inclusion aims to address the impact of emission production in the aviation sector. In many countries, people used low-cost airline and cheap air travel neglecting the external cost of aviation emissions and their impact on climate change. Despite aviation’s current share of total greenhouse gas emissions is relatively modest, around two to three per cent, the growth of air travel over the past sixty years has been remarkable and it is estimated that global emission will increase by 290 to 667 per cent from 2006 levels by 2050 (European Commission, 2011). Aircraft emission are more dangerous than other means of transportation because they release gaseous and particulate emissions at high altitudes directly into atmosphere. These emissions are more harmful than emission from other means of transportation because water vapour and nitrogen-oxide emissions alter the concentration of ozone and methane and form condensation trails (Mertz, 2010 in Kulovesi, 2011). This will result in a warming effect that is two-to-four times as large as that caused by the carbon dioxide from the aviation fuel.
Due to this urgent issue, some national governments and the European Union proposed couples of procedures to reduce global aviation emissions (Kulovesi, 2011). Australia, for example, proposed that Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) should explore the scope for addressing emission from international aviation and maritime sectors. Tuvalu suggested that climate finance should be collected through international levies on international aviation and maritime transport, developed in cooperation with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and International Maritime Organization (IMO).
Despite the intensive negotiation held within many global institutions, the global agreement for reducing emission in the aviation sector is failed. The European Union take her own initiatives to include aviation into the established EU ETS. This decision has received strong criticism from nearly thirty countries, including China, India, Japan, Russia and the United States. They adopted a joint declaration describing EU’s scheme for aviation emission as “discriminatory” and a violation of international law. China blocked orders by Hong Kong Airlines for ten new Airbus 380 aircraft in protest against EU ETS (Ibid). Furthermore, the Air Transport Association of America (ATA) together with American Airlines, Continental Airlines and United Airlines have challenged against the UK Minister of Energy and Climate Change concerning the EU’s trading scheme for aviation emissions.
This conflict can be understood through many perspective but this article attempted to compare the explanation between the political realism and utilitarian ecology. Before going to that point, I will give several notes on the factors for choosing these perspectives. International Relation theory and political ecology are rarely integrated/converged into a synthesis formulation. Laferrière, and Stoett, in other hand, argue that it is useful to integrate both perspective. While IR theory has always been visited by, and has borrowed liberally from, various strands of political philosophy, the searching and challenging body of ecological thought which had emerged during the preceding decades (and, indeed, centuries) had yet to have a substantive impact (Laferrière, and Stoett , 2004). When IR theorists did discuss ecological issues, they did so from a very conservative understanding of the ecological problematique, reformulating classic problems of scarcity and collective action. To defend this statement, I will start the explanation of this EU ETS with political realism and compare it with conservative utilitarian ecology.
Realists will see environment is important but must be supported by states and their strategic interest. Incompatibility with states and their strategic interest will makes environmental campaign useless. Using basic assumptions of realism (anarchy as state of nature), the inclusion of aviation into EU ETS would create chaos in global aviation because non-EU airlines will face unfair disadvantages from paying extra money for their emissions. They view that this “illegitimate tax” would increase significantly their airline ticket and decrease their competitiveness vis-a-vis European airlines. Since the EU holds a world-leading position in low-carbon technology, its carbon tax scheme on airlines would help it to set a precedent for carbon taxes on other high-carbon industries. It is also probable to say that European carbon trader (e.g. Barclays Capital, JP Morgan Securities) need the inclusion of aviation industry into EU ETS to enhance profits in the European carbon market.
Meanwhile, conservative utilitarianist look at the problem from different side. Utilitarianism offer the foundation of cooperation between economic and environment (Ibid.). For them, EU ETS is the answer for the compatibility of environmental protection with business. Brutland’s Sustainable development and carbon trading are major examples showing the view of nature as resources for purposes of capital accumulation – related forces of industry and finance. The utilitarianist believes that new form of global environment managerialism will emerged producing gradual professionalization of environmentalism, turning environmental groups into profitable career paths for lawyers, accountants and engineers.
EU has proposed to the ICAO and the IMO to adapt EU ETS. ICAO is a specialised agency of the UN established to promote safe and orderly development of civil aviation. The ICAO Council acts as governing body, mandated to develop binding international standards and regulations on issues such as aviation safety, efficiency, regularity, and environmental protection. Despite the ICAO has agreed to develop a CO2 certification standard by 2013 and continue facilitating the development and deployment of sustainable alternative aviation fuels, the 2007 ICAO Assembly opposed the application of emission trading scheme to aviation emissions (Kulovesi, 2011). Looking at this condition, EU thinks that EU should lead the global battle against climate change by its own example. The emission trading scheme for aviation emission applies to the twenty-seven EU member states, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway. It will cover nearly 4,000 aircrafts.
Analysis by Faber and Brinkle (2011) shows that the scheme can be expected to have some positive impacts on developing countries. EU Directives (2008) provides:
It shall be for Member States to determine the use to be made of revenues generated from the auctioning of allowances. Those revenues should be used to tackle climate change in the EU and third countries, inter alia, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to adapt to the impacts of climate change in the EU and third countries, especially developing countries, to fund research and development for mitigation and adaptation, including in particular in the fields of aeronautics and air transport, to reduce emissions through low-emission transport and to cover the cost of administering the Community scheme. The proceeds of auctioning should also be used to fund contributions to the Global Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fund, and measures to avoid deforestation. Member States shall inform the Commission of actions taken pursuant to this paragraph.
From above explanations, I can take some points of reflections. Firstly, political realism focused to the problem of material interest and collective action. The main question for realist is the power game: who gets what. Secondly, the utilitarian ecologist has adopted the prudence positions that restraints of natural-resource consumption is needed but with emphasis on science and technology to enhance natural-resource yields. The best way to ensure “win-win solution for environment and economy” is to set up a global trading scheme but EU ETS can be seen as a step in the right direction to an effective, globally agreed scheme.
Contemporary Issues in International Governance have similarities with International Governance and Civil Society and International Institutions: Theory and Practice. They teach me that international institutions have significant actual and potential capabilities in shaping the form of international political economy order. I noticed some literatures in these courses have connected patterns to elaborate the importance of global governance, such Scholte (2005), Finnemore and Barnett (2004) and Bulkeley, H., and Newell, P. (2010).
I think there is a lot of opportunities to address comprehensively the impact of international institutions policies, such as IMF’s and World Bank’s structural adjustment programs or the movement of trans-national corporations, to the global citizen itself. The role of critical theories in addressing the oppression and exploitation is powerful and need to be used in many occasions in the master programme.
​
​
​
​