Open skies deal will undo curbs on CO2, say Greens
[ ... who says Britain is a nation of w(h)ingers - and I don't mean frequent flyers ... ronounced winge-ers ?!]
David Teather
Saturday March 24, 2007
The Guardian
The number of flights between the United States and Europe is expected to increase by half over the next five years - an additional 25 million air passengers - after European transport ministers approved the landmark deal on Thursday.
From March next year, European carriers will be able to fly to any destination in the US and vice versa.
Emily Armistead, of Greenpeace, said open skies "clearly goes completely against what the European Union is trying to do to tackle climate change". She said it was "pretty outrageous" that the deal had been agreed just weeks after EU leaders pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020.
"What is really worrying," she added, "is that this will cause prices to plummet and that will encourage the kind of binge flying culture that we have in Britain to spread on to the continent."
Greenpeace has also been campaigning against the growth of domestic flights and this week picketed the inaugural British Airways flight from London to Newquay in Cornwall.
Transport and Environment, a Brussels-based environmental organisation, said open skies would lead to some 3.5m tonnes of extra CO2 emissions annually. That would wipe out any gains from the planned inclusion of aviation in the emissions trading scheme. The group also complained that the deal had done nothing to address the prohibition on fuel tax on transatlantic flights.
Caroline Lucas, a Green Party MEP, said: "It is simply incompatible to be encouraging a large increase in the number of flights between the EU and US at the same time as cutting greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently to either prevent the worst impacts of climate change or even meet the emissions reductions targets agreed at the Brussels summit."
A second round of talks will focus on EU demands that Washington relax ownership of US airlines and allow European carriers to operate internal US flights. The open skies deal is expected to herald a wave of consolidation among airlines as they scramble to acquire landing slots.
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