IATA economist warns EU would lose again over wider aviation carbon scheme

A senior IATA official predicts the European Union will "lose again" if it widens its emissions trading system to cover flights outside the European Economic Area.

Marie Owens Thomsen, IATA's senior vice-president of sustainability and chief economist, spoke at a media briefing during the IATA World Sustainability Symposium in Brussels on 13 October. She said she could not understand why the European Commission wanted to spend so much effort broadening the scheme's reach when it had come off worse on the question before.

In July the Commission proposed, as part of a broader review of the trading system, bringing flights within 5,000km of the bloc's geographic centre into the scheme from 2029. That step would depend on progress in strengthening CORSIA, ICAO's global carbon offsetting and reduction scheme for international aviation.

Flights to the United States would not be covered. US carriers previously challenged their inclusion and took legal action over the matter. Flights to the Middle East and parts of Africa would fall within it.

The proposal comes as legislation that suspended the application of the trading system to flights from outside the EU, agreed years ago to give ICAO room to build a global market-based measure for aviation emissions, is due to lapse later this year.

After the briefing, Owens Thomsen told a reporter the Commission's move was "self-empowered overreach". A 5,000km threshold measured from Frankfurt had no climate rationale, she said, describing the approach as choosing which countries to upset and which to spare rather than proper climate policy. It amounts to using whatever leverage the Commission believes it holds.