As the dead line comes close, more opposing airlines close ranks to stand against the EU-ETS plan Twenty-six nations lodged a formal protest yesterday against a European Union law to make airlines pay for carbon emissions. Under EU legislation, from 1 January all flights to or from Europe will have to buy carbon permits to help offset their emissions under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS). On Wednesday a meeting of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in Montreal, Canada dealt with the airlines' cause. EU lawyers have said any decision by the ICAO council would not be legally binding, but could be a step toward a formal dispute procedure, in which the president of ICAO would mediate. A copy of an ICAO council working paper seen by Reuters said the law, unilaterally passed by the EU, posed "major challenges and risks for aircraft operators". An EU source said the most likely outcome on Wednesday was that the ICAO council would vote through a set of resolutions. Of the 36 states on the council, 26, including the United States, China and Russia, would call on the EU and its member states to cease making flights by non-EU carriers fall under the remit of its ETS. They would also adopt a declaration the 26 states made in New Delhi at the end of September, saying the EU plans were discriminatory and breached international laws. The 26 member states expected to oppose the EU are Argentina, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chile, China, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, India, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Paraguay, Peru, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Swaziland, Uganda, the United States and the United Arab Emirates. The EU, which wants to lead the battle against climate change, decided in 2008 that aviation should become a part of its cap-and-trade carbon programme after airline discharges in Europe doubled over two decades. Carriers including American Airlines and Continental Airlines are already challenging the law in an EU court, and China's airline association said earlier this year the European initiative may prompt a trade conflict. The EU emissions trading system is the cornerstone of the region's plan to cut greenhouse gases that scientists blame for global warming. It imposes pollution limits on more than 11,000 manufacturers and power companies, leading to a cap in 2020 that will be 21 per cent below 2005 discharges. The EU law offers an option of excluding incoming flights from a particular country if that nation implements equivalent measures to cut pollution from its air transport sector. The industry estimated that participation in the cap-and-trade system would cost US airlines $3.1 billion between 2012 and 2020. An adviser to the EU court handling the lawsuit by US carriers said in a non-binding opinion on 6 October that the inclusion of aviation in the European cap-and-trade is compatible with international law, signaling that the suing airlines should lose the challenge. While the airlines have argued the commercial cost of the EU law could be significant and they have taken separate steps to reduce their carbon impact; the European Commission's calculations are that it would be modest. Depending on decisions by airlines on how much to pass on to customers, the Commission has calculated costs per passenger could rise by between around 2 euros ($2.80) and 12 euros -- much less than the 100 euro per allowance penalty it would impose on airlines that do not comply. Some analysts had suggested the airlines' claims the EU law was discriminatory could lead to a case before the World Trade Organisation, but lawyers said that was the wrong
