BRUSSELS — The European Commission said on Thursday that airlines that did not follow a new European law requiring them to account for their emissions of greenhouse gases could face being banned from European airports.
The warning was the latest stage in an escalating war of words between the European Union and countries like China, which have expressed fierce opposition to a law that represents the European Union’s boldest move to date to protect the climate.
The initiative went into effect at the start of the year and involves folding aviation into the European Union’s six-year-old Emissions Trading System, in which polluters can buy and sell a limited quantity of permits, each representing a ton of carbon dioxide.
A European ban on noncompliant airlines would be a measure of “very last resort” applicable only in cases of “continued noncompliance,” Isaac Valero-Ladron, the commission’s spokesman for climate action, said on Thursday at a news conference in Brussels.
Mr. Valero-Ladron said airlines would initially face fines by national authorities of 100 euros ($130) for each ton of carbon dioxide that they failed to account for under the permit system.
“We’re confident the companies will comply,” Mr. Valero-Ladron said. “The penalties for noncompliance are much higher than compliance.”
Even so, the Europeans and opponents of the system, including airlines and the authorities in China and the United States, will probably have to compromise at some stage to avoid the dispute turning into a disruptive trade war.
In the United States, the House of Representatives has already approved a bill that would bar American air carriers from participating in the system. A similar bill has been introduced in the Senate.
Airbus, the European aircraft maker, and the Association of European Airlines, an industry group, have raised concerns that a trade conflict with the United States and China could affect their businesses.
Earlier Thursday, a Chinese foreign ministry official reiterated a call for Europe to seek an international agreement on how to regulate emissions from the aviation sector before imposing “unilateral legislation,” The Associated Press reported from Beijing.
Chinese airlines have not yet decided whether to add a ticket surcharge to help offset the costs of the system or to refuse to pay the fines entirely. “It has not come to that stage yet,” said Chai Haibo, the deputy secretary-general of the China Air Transport Association, according to The Associated Press.
Chinese carriers have also threatened to bring a lawsuit, possibly in Germany, where the authorities will oversee the application of the system to several Chinese airlines.
But airlines do not need to hand over permits accounting for their emissions until April 30, 2013, and that could leave room for a compromise to be found over the next year.
Last month, the European Union’s highest tribunal, the European Court of Justice, rejected a complaint by a group of American airlines that had argued that requiring them to participate in the emissions-trading system infringed on national sovereignty and conflicted with existing international aviation treaties.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/business/global/eu-toughens-stance-in-airline-carbon-dispute.html?partner=rss&emc=rss