China likely to support ICAO

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)'s latest move on the European Union carbon tax on airlines operating in its airspace represents a proactive response to the controversial EU plan and is likely to win support from China and the US, analysts said on Monday.

"The ICAO's reaction to the EU's carbon tax plan with a proposal of four alternatives shows the organization is taking a proactive approach. If its members agreed to one of the four options, it will be a global solution rather than a unilateral one like the current EU plan," Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the Global Times.

Roberto Kobeh Gonzalez, president of ICAO's governing council, proposed Friday four possible mechanisms that could form an alternative to the EU's carbon tax, Reuters reported.

These include mandatory offsetting of emissions from airlines, mandatory offsetting "with some revenue-generating mechanism," a cap-and-trade system in which all aviation emissions are traded and another cap-and-trade system under which increases or decreases from an initial emission baseline could be traded, according to the report.

The ICAO council has directed a working group to continue studying the four options and report back in June, and Gonzalez said he expected that one or more of the four options will be ruled out by then.

"The four alternatives, if agreed by the ICAO's members, will have legal binding force," said Chai Haibo, deputy secretary-general of the China Air Transport Association.

"I believe China's civil aviation governing body will actively participate in the international negotiation under the ICAO's framework," Chai said.

"The US will also support the creation of a global carbon trading system for aviation, which will facilitate global negotiation over carbon emission reduction for the aviation industry," he said.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China yesterday declined to comment on the four options.

"Under the last two options, the key issue is how to allocate the emission quota. Those who get more quotas may gain profits from selling quotas that they can't use. The EU and US will definitely not allow developing countries such as China and India to gain high quotas," Qian Guoqiang, a Beijing-based expert on carbon emission reduction, told the Global Times.

Qian said the mandatory offsetting mechanism may prove more beneficial to all countries because under that plan countries can implement some emission reduction projects such as clean development mechanisms to offset their emission amount.

"The best scenario is that the EU will see the ICAO's proposal as an opportunity to get out of an awkward position where many countries oppose its levy and will cancel the carbon tax, or postpone it, to allow all countries to negotiate over the four options," Lin from Xiamen University said.