Including aviation in the Emissions Trading Scheme is Europe’s current strategy on reducing the sector’s fast-growing impact on climate, and has received criticism on numerous counts – such as the scheme only covering CO2 emissions while aviation is an important emitter of much more potent greenhouse gases.

EU lawmaker Peter Liese pointed out another flaw in the scheme this week – credits should not be given to airlines for free, as envisaged in the ETS plans, for the system to be effective, he said.

Euro-deputies would push for the ETS to force airlines to buy more carbon credits, he said.

Airlines protested, saying this would be unfair as other industries were handed most of their credits free of charge.

Environmentalists point out that this is one of the reasons why the ETS has not worked so far, leading to the carbon credit market collapse last year.

Goska Romanowicz

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