BRUSSELS — The United Nations’ International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on Friday criticized the European Commission’s proposal to extend the Emissions Trading System (ETS) to flights to the Middle East from 2029.
The U.N. agency “expressed concern” in a statement, saying Brussels’ draft bill “would undermine the only globally harmonized measure applying to CO2 emissions from international aviation and result in duplicative measures,” ICAO said, referring to the U.N.’s Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA), established in 2016.
The commission wants to extend the ETS — which currently applies only to flights within the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway — to any destinations within 5,000 kilometers of Frankfurt. That would bring routes to airports such as Istanbul and Dubai into the ETS, while excluding flights to countries such as the United States and China.
The commission’s decision comes after the EU executive faced opposition to extending the ETS to all departing international flights, which a senior EU official described as “one of the options.”
