The European Parliament's environment committee has put the airline industry squarely on its radar screen for tougher emissions measures, with plans to cut carbon dioxide emissions to a lower level more quickly than many had thought the committee would.
Earlier this month, the committee voted to include aviation in its emissions trading plan.
Under the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme, a cap is established on the amount of carbon dioxide that planes can emit. If airlines exceed the cap, they must buy emissions credits from other airlines under the cap.
Airlines must monitor and report their emissions to the E.U.
According to the plan, in 2012, the year the program begins, 85% of the initial emissions certificates will be allocated for free, and the remaining 15% will be sold in an auction. By 2013, the percentage of free certificates will drop to 80%. Free emissions for the industry would end altogether by 2020.
European industry groups decried the plan, saying the measures would likely lead to more airline bankruptcies.
Sylviane Lust, director general of the International Air Carrier Association, which represents 40 airlines, said in a statement: "We are dismayed that the ... committee has again taken the opportunity to inflict more damaging and extreme measures on the aviation industry, especially at a time of great economic uncertainty for the sector, airline bankruptcies and weakening demand."
The design to include aviation in the emission trading plan was approved by the European Council and Parliament this summer and will apply to all flights to, from and within the E.U., starting in 2012, the IACA said.
The cap on aviation emissions was fixed at 95%, based on emission levels in 2004 through 2006, with a review in 2015, the organization said; but it said that the committee voted to instead reduce the cap annually by a linear reduction factor from 2013.
Lust said, "The regime for including aviation ... was adopted only three months ago as a result of a political compromise. The reopening of the debate on aviation ... creates a high level of financial and legal uncertainty for airlines.
The secretary general of the Association of European Airlines, Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus, said in a statement, "The world is facing the biggest fiscal crisis ever and is heading into a deep recession, both of which will alter the face of entire economies.
"And yet these politicians maintain a fixation that airlines will all grow and grow, and that therefore the levels of auctioning of permits should be raised even above that for other industries, and the cap for free allowances reduced -- and all that without the slightest impact assessment."