Coercion with kid gloves? The European Union's role in shaping a global regulatory framework for aviation emissions

ABSTRACT

The European Union (EU) is widely assumed to be a global environmental leader, especially in addressing climate change, though this reputation suffered greatly when European leaders were sidelined during the 2009 United Nations Climate Summit in Copenhagen. Subsequently, however, the EU has made significant progress in extending its Emission Trading System to the aviation sector, one of the fastest-growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions, and did so not only regionally, but also managed to get it onto the global policy agenda. This contribution investigates the EU's role in shaping the 2013 International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) resolution committing 191 government signatories to developing a global market-based measure to cap international aviation's carbon pollution. While not exactly setting new environmental standards or achieving definitive regulatory success, the case illustrates the agenda-setting capacity of the EU through leveraging its market power and adopting an explicitly extra-territorial rule to induce potential regulatory co-operation.

KEY WORDS:

• Aviation emissions
• climate change
• Emissions Trading System
• European Union
• extra-territoriality
• International Civil Aviation Organization

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on this manuscript. Appreciation also goes to Andrew Wirt for his research assistance, and I am especially grateful to the guest editor of this collection, Alasdair Young, for his helpful and generous guidance.

Notes

1 For further discussion of the critiques, extensions and refinements of the NPE approach see Whitman (2011) and Birchfield (2013).

2 Directive 2003/87/EC of the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, 13 October 2003, setting up ‘a scheme for greenhouse gas emission trading within the Community’.

3 For examples of criticism of the EU in the press, see, for example: BBC News, 22 December 2009, ‘Europe Snubbed in Copenhagen’ available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/legacy/thereporters/gavinhewitt/2009/12/s_5.html and The New York Times, 15 January 2010, ‘EU Seeks to Regain Influence on Response to Climate Change’, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/16/business/global/16iht-inside16.html (accessed 21 April 2014). For extensive scholarly analysis of this failure to exercise leadership at the Copenhagen summit, see Oberthür (2013) and Groen and Niemann (2012).

4 ClimateWire: Friday, January 15, 2010, available at http://www.eenews.net/stories/86478 (accessed 10 October 2014).

5 http://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/ets/index_en.htm (accessed 9 August 2014).

6 The author acknowledges one of the anonymous reviewers for this insight.

7 http://www.icao.int/about-icao/Pages/council.aspx (accessed 21 April 2014).

8 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52006DC0105 (accessed 23 April 2014).

9 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, [2009] OJ, L 8/3 [Directive 2008/101].

10 Annual Report of the Council, ICAO 2007, 39–43. http://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/Documents/Env_Report_07.pdf (accessed 13 January 2015).

11 http://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/Pages/group-international-aviation-climate-change.aspx (accessed 23 April 2015).

12 ICAO, ICAO News Release, COM 20/12, ‘New ICAO Council High-level Group to Focus on Environmental Policy Challenges’ (15 November 2012) available at http://www.icao.int/Newsroom/Pages/new-ICAO-council-high-level-group-to-focus-on-environmental-policy-challenges.aspx (accessed 23 April 2015).

13 http://ec.europa.eu/clima/news/articles/news_2012111202_en.htm (accessed 23 April 2015).

14 http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-12-854_en.htm (accessed 23 April 2015).

15 Regulation (EU) No 421/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 April 2014 amending Directive 2003/87/EC establishing a scheme for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading within the Community, in view of the implementation by 2020 of an international agreement applying a single global market-based measure to international aviation emissions. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32014R0421 (accessed 21 April 2015).

16 Regulation (EU) No 421/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 April 2014 amending Directive 2003/87/EC establishing a scheme for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading within the Community, in view of the implementation by 2020 of an international agreement applying a single global market-based measure to international aviation emissions. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32014R0421 (accessed 21 April 2015).

17 http://www.euractiv.com/sections/transport/chinas-trade-war-threats-over-aviation-emissions-not-serious-meps-say-301263 (accessed 16 April 2014).

18 http://www.aircargoworld.com/Air-Cargo-News/2011/10/u-s-house-votes-to-ban-eu-ets-participation/262794 (accessed 20 April 2014.

19 http://www.greenaironline.com/news.php?viewStory=1505 (accessed 20 August 2014).

20 For evidence of IATA's commitment and early efforts to influence ICAO and its members, see http://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/Pages/2009-12-08-01.aspx (accessed 13 January 2015); see also Staniland (2012: 1016).

21 http://www.greenaironline.com/news.php?viewStory=1763 (accessed 28 August 2014).

22 http://www.euractiv.com/sections/aviation/icao-under-pressure-forge-deal-aviation-emissions-303563 (accessed 1 September 2014).

23 European Commission (EC), News, ‘Commission proposes to “stop the clock” on international aviation in the EU ETS pending 2013 ICAO General Assembly' (12 November 2012), Newsroom, Climate Action, European Commission, available at http://ec.europa.eu/clima/news/articles/news_2012111202_en.htm (accessed 1 September 2014).

24 http://www.greenaironline.com/news.php?viewStory=1659 (accessed 20 April 2015).

Additional information

Biographical note

Vicki L. Birchfield is associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology.