USA airlines vs. EU climate policy

U.S. airlines stepped up their campaign against European Union climate policy on Tuesday, challenging the EU in the ECJ over the right to regulate their greenhouse gas emissions. The EU aims to lead the world in fighting climate change, and says it needs to put a price on carbon dioxide emissions to guard against future climate impacts such as crop failures, droughts or flooding.

From January 2012, airlines flying to or from Europe will have to buy permits from the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) for 15% of the carbon emissions they produce during the entire flight. 11,000 factories and power plants are already in the scheme. The Air Transport Association of America (ATA) mounted its challenge to the EU on two main fronts — that its climate regulations breached U.S. sovereignty, and secondly that they comprised an illegal charge under the main international treaty on air travel, the Chicago Convention.