This is idiotic. The EU carbon trading cabal has decided to extort the rest of the air travel world starting in 2012. In a nutshell, they’ll ban flights from landing if the airlines don’t engage in carbon trading. It’s yet another variation of the “Plane Stupid” theme.
Benny Peiser of the GWPF alerts us to the translation of the article in the German magazine Handelsblatt
By Thomas Ludwig
Foreign airlines are threatened with a flight and landing ban from 2012 in the European Union if they do not participate in emissions trading.
The ban is proposed in an internal document by the EU Commission seen by Handelsblatt. Summarised on nine pages, the guidelines describe how such a ban could be implement. The Commission considers a flight and landing ban as a last resort to make the airlines surrender over its Emissions Trading Scheme.
An EU Directive stipulates that airlines from Europe and third countries are mandated to be included in the trading of emissions rights. On their flights to and from Europe, they may then only emit as much CO2 as the CO2 certificates they hold. 85 percent of the certificates are free of charge while 15 percent of the allowances have to bought via auctions.
“The whole project has not been thought through. The EU cannot impose its law on third countries,” Holger Krahmer, environmental spokesman for the German Liberal Party in the EU Parliament told Handelsblatt.
In fact, international resistance against the EU plan is growing. Several American, Asian and African airlines are suing the EU over its emissions trade project. The US Aviation Association ATA is attempting to have the policy suspended by the European Court of Justice. And the Russian government has also voiced its displeasure in Brussels.
Not even critics of the project believe that the European Commission will actually ban flights by American and other foreign airlines. “They will use it as leverage, and accept compensation measures,” estimates Liberal MEP Holger Krahmer. The EU Commission is looking for a face-saving way out: “What remains are the costs of CO2 allowances, which will only burden European airlines and make them uncompetitive” Airlines such as Lufthansa and Air Berlin had already warned of this danger in the legislative process.
“The EU has once again overestimated itself,” said Krahmer. “The project was not thought through. The EU cannot impose its legal authority on third countries.”
At the end of September, the general assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) will take place. Some countries, such as the U.S. want to adopt a resolution, which will make clear that emissions trading systems may only be applied by mutual agreement.
“Greenhouse gas emissions have increased dramatically, particularly in air traffic,” said Social Democrat MEP Matthias Groote. The climate expert warns against granting exemptions to noncompliant airlines from third countries. “If the U.S. and other countries try to suspend the EU emissions trading regime for third countries, it would lead to a huge distortion of competition for European airspace.” It is more important than ever to integrate international aviation into the EU’s emissions trading system. After all, the emissions of greenhouse gases in air traffic have doubled in the past two decades.
The EU Directive, which includes aviation in emissions trading, is part of a package of regulations with which the EU wants to meet its climate protection goals. Emissions of greenhouse gases should fall by a fifth by 2020 under the 1990 level […]
The inclusion of aviation in the Emissions Trading Scheme will impact consumers too. According to calculations by the EU Commission, a ticket for a return flight within the EU could become more expensive by up to nine Euros because of emissions trading. For long-haul flights, larger price increases can be expected, a return ticket to New York could be up to 40 Euros more expensive. [translation by Philipp Mueller]
Full story here: Handelsblatt, 22 September 2010
h/t to Benny Peiser http://www.thegwpf.org
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I never had much desire to visite Europe. This just cements it.
Although…I don’t see the EU going through with this. This is a massive dinero redistribution scheme with mainly money from the USA to the EU. North American airlines should basically tell em to have at it, we’re going home. You want some of our tourists? Send a sailboat.
Hey Euro Union….why don’t you ask Mother Earth what she thinks of CO2??
Perhaps she was already hinting at this stupid regulation…by “pre-punishing” European airspace with lots of volcanic ash earlier this year.
Back to CO2. Co2 is good and necessary for life on this amazing blue-green-white marble hanging in the balance of space.
Its not nice to fool Mother Nature. Watch out. She means business.
And the European Union, I am not sure what you have been smoking to come up with this rule, but you can kiss my American ___.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
But the military consumption of aircraft fuel is also large. Will the EU be placing an impost on the military forces of other countries?
BTW, I’m still waiting for a robust scientific paper that links CO2 emissions quantitatively to global temperatures. Can someone from the EU supply it, in justification for their proposal?
Mike Ford says:
September 27, 2010 at 8:14 pm
I never had much desire to visite Europe. This just cements it.
===============================
Hey…that’s kind of a really ignorant, xenophobic statement.
Don’t toss the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.
Europe is the motherland. Lots and lots and LOTS of variation, history, culture, and architecture.
To say you “never had a desire to visit Europe”….is a really damning statement on your part.
Surely you were just joking….
Chris
Anti growth groups have also beaten the drum of climate to forestall the Heathrow expansion, fitting right in with the calls to halt air travel or to force citizens to choose between heating their homes or taking a flight to visit grandma. Looks like economic suicide. But if it successfully spreads, it will be economic genocide.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/kamal-ahmed/8025115/Heathrow-airport-a-very-dangerous-signal-indeed.html
In fact, jet contrails are commonly seen seeding cloud formation. I’m not sure anyone knows if they’re positive or negative feedback.
They are clearly insane. This would lead to bans on EU planes landing elsewhere, thus further isolating Europe. EU members would bail from the union if they ever did something as stupid as this.
I suspect what we are seeing is some EU version of a trial balloon. I can’t wait to hear what the Russians and Chinese have to say – and also some of the member states dependent on tourism.
EU – stuffed with failed politicians, social studies graduates and gravy-trainers. A travesty of a governing institution if ever there was one. Such a shame they wield real power otherwise we could just laugh at their classroom idiocy and hand-wringing exercises. Sack them all.
Mike Ford says:
September 27, 2010 at 8:14 pm
……….Although…I don’t see the EU going through with this. ………..
========================================================
Uhmm, have you checked lately what they’ve done to Apple and Microsoft? They have a completely different view of what “competitive” means when applying the concept to U.S. companies vs. European. Patents and copyrights are pretty much meaningless when it comes to U.S. companies holding them. Oracle,…..different story. It comes down to competitive advantages. If a U.S. company holds one, they seek to eliminate it. Mind you, not by changing their laws or prodding their companies to become competitive. Only to take the advantage away. Should be interesting, if not maddening.
One of these days I was hoping to travel to Ireland and visit the graveyards and homelands of my ancestors (“Ulster Scots”). This would nix that in short order.
Does this mean all those US and Canadian military aircraft in Europe should come home and spend the money on fuel at home instead of in Europe and Afghanistan and …. ?
Guess I’ll plan a trip for next year before the old empires crumble into sand …
The Brother of a workmate of mine here in Australia has just resigned from a major Bank. He was to trade carbon, but that dosen’t seem to be going to happen now.
Again, the Australian MSM “filter” real meaningful news from their papers and websites. Add to this, the Australian Govn’t want to “filter” the internet too.
So this is how the EU writes it’s own epitaph.
The US will be forced to withdraw the forces it has stationed in the EU or pay steep carbon taxes.
I have to wonder what these people are thinking.
Yeah, that wil work. Remember what happened during the Icelandic volcano eruption.
The sooner the EU folds and releases its hostages, the better off EUrope will be. THis is another piece of the crumbling puzzle.
It speaks world’s when the only way they can get people or a company to do what they want, as part of the global warming scam—carbon trading, is by extortion.
If the economy in the Eurozone keeps tanking, the EU itself my be on its way out before this carbon scheme is even implemented.
We can only hope…
Its stuff like this that makes me want to have 10 children and teach them all the benefits of driving cars that get 8 MPG or less.
Lets have a fun contest and see what the actual limit of the Earth is for humans instead of making up fuzzy numbers. Guess I wouldn’t be so cynical about this issue if it wasn’t for the fact that this is my time to travel before I have children and I do want to see Europe, but alas with this kind of garbage guess I will go visit China instead since they never bought into this global warming, hug a tree nonsense.
I wonder if this would be in violation of any trade agreements…
Actually, the concept isn’t anything new, it’s just be applied across a broader range of services and systems that consume fossil fules. Many companies in the EU, Australia and New Zealand are being pressured into adopting a similar scheme, they have to trade in emissions or their products will not get approval for sale. It is very similar to industry in the UK in the 80’s, the company had to be BS5250 certified (ISO9001 is the equivalent these days I think), or you just didn’t operate in the UK. It certainly looks a sure fire way to economic oblivion.
Wasn’t planning on going to Europe anyway.
Stevethesharks. Good grief, Mike Ford says he doesn’t have much desire to go to Europe and you jump to the conclusion that he is Xenophobic. That strikes me a quite an over reaction. There are quite a few places I don’t have much desire to go to such as Ohio or Detroit or Iceland. That doesn’t mean I have a fear of people from those places, just that I really don’t have a passion to see them.
My father was from Europe but I still am not that interest in going there. To suggest that preference is due to Xenophobia is way over the top. I think that your assumptions about about people who don’t share your choice in travel destinations shows the real prejudice.
Meanwhile in British Columbia, Canada…
“Last week, the provincial government caucus announced it will be introducing legislation to eliminate the jet fuel tax for international flights on April 1, 2012, saving airlines approximately $20 million in the 2012-2013 budget year.
”
http://www.bclocalnews.com/news/103887409.html
Go easy with the xenophobia and don’t confuse the EU with European peoples. Most European countries were recently denied referenda on the European constitution even where promised them. It is the political elites who have sold Europeans down the toilet.
Many, many Europeans want to get the hell out of the EU, and the number is increasing daily. One day, there WILL be a reckoning; we can only hope it won’t be violent – it’s not as if Europe is a stranger to revolutions. For the moment, the Euro looks stable after the problems in Greece, but if it goes down the pan, that will be the end of the EU as we know it, and good riddance is all I can say.
Carbon credits are cheap. The US airlines will cave in and negotiate a CTX tax on our ticket. It will be just enough not to notice. This is how it starts. But in the end it will be just another tax that will actually encourage the EU to promote traffic in order to collect more tax. This will offset the tax and actually result in more flying and an increase in co2. Central planning.
This is not going to float.
As a economic union it works somehow but as a political union it is downright a failure, the EU only exist because of these kind of measures, idiotic laws, extortions and others that would be expected from the mob.
Overhere in the Netherlands we had our carbon-tax on flights from the Netherlands, 12.50 euros for flights within Europe and 45 euros for intercontinetal flights. Within a year the minister of finance had to suspend this tax because it was costing the Dutch state more than it earned from this tax.
The carbon tax did not deliver what it promised, ever! And the Dutch population is hard one to fool all the time especially if you try to fool all of them on what is going on inside Brussel and Strassburg.
savethesharks says:
To say you “never had a desire to visit Europe”….is a really damning statement on your part.
Surely you were just joking….
Well, I’ve BEEN to Europe, didn’t enjoy it all that much, and have little desire to return. And this just cements it. Yeah, it would be interesting to visit Ireland where part of the family is from, but, well, not that interesting.
The whole place is just so old and crowded… 😉
Though I’m reminded of what my Dad said when asked if he wanted to take a vacation to go see Europe: “Son, I’ve WALKED over the dam place from England and Normandy to Berlin and never want to see it again!”
Oh, and am I the only one that finds it “odd” they “will not let planes land” … after a transatlantic flight and with empty fuel tanks??! Surely that’s not what they mean!