L_2009008EN.01000301.xml
| 13.1.2009 | EN | Official Journal of the European Union | L 8/3 |
DIRECTIVE 2008/101/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL
of 19 November 2008
amending Directive 2003/87/EC so as to include aviation activities in the scheme for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading within the Community
(Text with EEA relevance)
THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 175(1) thereof,
Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,
Having regard to the opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee (1),
Having regard to the opinion of the Committee of the Regions (2),
Acting in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 251 of the Treaty (3),
Whereas:
| (1) | Directive 2003/87/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 October 2003 establishing a scheme for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading within the Community (4) established a scheme for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading within the Community in order to promote reductions of greenhouse gas emissions in a cost-effective and economically efficient manner. |
| (3) | The European Council meeting in Brussels on 8 and 9 March 2007 underlined the vital importance of achieving the strategic objective of limiting the global average temperature increase to not more than 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. The latest scientific findings reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its Fourth Assessment Report demonstrate even more clearly that the negative impacts of climate change are increasingly posing a serious risk to ecosystems, food production and the attainment of sustainable development and of the Millennium Development Goals, as well as to human health and security. Keeping the 2 °C objective within reach requires stabilisation of the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in line with about 450 ppmv CO2 equivalent, which requires global greenhouse gas emissions to peak within the next 10 to 15 years and substantial global emission reductions to at least 50 % below 1990 levels by 2050. |
| (4) | The European Council emphasised that the European Union is committed to transforming Europe into a highly energy-efficient and low greenhouse gas-emitting economy and, until a global and comprehensive post-2012 agreement is concluded, made a firm independent commitment for the EU to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to at least 20 % below 1990 levels by 2020. The limitation of greenhouse gas emissions from aviation is an essential contribution in line with this commitment. |
| (5) | The European Council emphasised that the EU is committed to a global and comprehensive agreement for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2012, providing an effective, efficient and equitable response on the scale required to face climate change challenges. It endorsed a 30 % reduction in the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels by 2020 as its contribution to a global and comprehensive agreement for the period beyond 2012, provided that other developed countries commit themselves to comparable emission reductions and economically more advanced developing countries to contributing adequately according to their responsibilities and respective capabilities. The EU is continuing to take the lead in the negotiation of an ambitious international agreement that will achieve the objective of limiting the global temperature increase to 2 °C and is encouraged by the progress made towards this objective at the 13th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC in Bali in December 2007. The EU will seek to ensure that such a global agreement includes measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from aviation and, in this event, the Commission should consider which amendments to this Directive as it applies to aircraft operators are necessary. |
| (6) | On 14 February 2007 the European Parliament adopted a resolution on climate change (6) in which it referred to the objective to limit the average global temperature increase to 2 °C above pre-industrialisation levels, and in which it urged the EU to maintain its leading role in the negotiations with a view to establishing a post-2012 international framework on climate change and to maintain a high level of ambition in future discussions with its international partners, and it emphasised the need to undertake overall emission reductions for all industrialised countries of 30 % compared to 1990 emission levels by 2020 with a view to achieving a reduction in the order of 60 to 80 % by 2050. |
| (7) | The UNFCCC requires all parties to formulate and implement national and, where appropriate, regional programmes containing measures to mitigate climate change. |
| (8) | The Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC, which was approved on behalf of the European Community by Council Decision 2002/358/EC (7), requires developed countries to pursue the limitation or reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol from aviation, working through the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). |
| (9) | While the Community is not a Contracting Party to the 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation (the Chicago Convention), all Member States are Contracting Parties to that Convention and members of the ICAO. Member States continue to support work with other States in the ICAO on the development of measures, including market-based instruments, to address the climate change impacts of aviation. At the sixth meeting of the ICAO Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection in 2004, it was agreed that an aviation-specific emissions trading system based on a new legal instrument under ICAO auspices seemed sufficiently unattractive that it should not then be pursued further. Consequently, Resolution A35-5 of the ICAO’s 35th Assembly held in September 2004 did not propose a new legal instrument but instead endorsed open emissions trading and the possibility for States to incorporate emissions from international aviation into their emissions trading schemes. Appendix L to Resolution A36-22 of the ICAO’s 36th Assembly held in September 2007 urges Contracting States not to implement an emissions trading system on other Contracting States’ aircraft operators except on the basis of mutual agreement between those States. Recalling that the Chicago Convention recognises expressly the right of each Contracting Party to apply on a non-discriminatory basis its own air laws and regulations to the aircraft of all States, the Member States of the European Community and fifteen other European States placed a reservation on this resolution and reserved the right under the Chicago Convention to enact and apply market-based measures on a non-discriminatory basis to all aircraft operators of all States providing services to, from or within their territory. |
| (10) | The Sixth Community Environment Action Programme established by Decision No 1600/2002/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (8) provided for the Community to identify and undertake specific actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from aviation if no such action were agreed within the ICAO by 2002. In its conclusions of October 2002, December 2003 and October 2004, the Council has repeatedly called on the Commission to propose action to reduce the climate change impact of international air transport. |
| (11) | Policies and measures should be implemented at Member State and Community level across all sectors of the Community economy in order to generate the substantial reductions needed. If the climate change impact of the aviation sector continues to grow at the current rate, it would significantly undermine reductions made by other sectors to combat climate change. |
| (12) | In its Communication of 27 September 2005 to the Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions entitled ‘Reducing the Climate Change Impact of Aviation’, the Commission outlined a strategy for reducing the climate impact of aviation. As part of a comprehensive package of measures, the strategy proposed the inclusion of aviation in the Community scheme for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading and provided for the creation of a multi-stakeholder working group on aviation as part of the second phase of the European Climate Change Programme to consider ways of including aviation in the Community scheme. In its Conclusions of 2 December 2005, the Council recognised that, from an economic and environmental point of view, the inclusion of the aviation sector in the Community scheme seemed to be the best way forward and called on the Commission to bring forward a legislative proposal by the end of 2006. In its resolution of 4 July 2006 on reducing the climate change impact of aviation (9), the European Parliament recognised that emissions trading has the potential to play a role as part of a comprehensive package of measures to address the climate impact of aviation, provided that it is appropriately designed. |
| (13) | A comprehensive package of measures should also include operational and technological measures. Improvements in air traffic management under the Single European Sky and SESAR programmes could help increase overall fuel efficiency by up to 12 %. Research into new technologies, including into methods for |
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