Associations urge EC to align EU ETS MRV requirements for international flights with CORSIA SARPs to prevent two parallel schemes

ERA (European Regions Airline Association*), IATA, AFRAA, AASA, A4A, A4E, AIRE, AACO, AAPA, EEA and ALTA have sent a letter to the European Commission urging it to take all necessary measures to ensure that Annex 16, Volume IV is implemented in Europe in its entirety and for all flights subject to CORSIA, including international flights to/from and between states in the European Economic Area.

It is fundamental that the international standards and recommended practices (SARPs) for CORSIA are adopted as the new Volume IV of Annex 16 to the Chicago Convention to ensure the necessary level of uniformity in regulations.

If the EU ETS MRV requirements were not aligned with Annex 16, Volume IV, operators and authorities in Europe would have to administer and comply with two schemes in parallel, using two sets of rules to monitor, report and verify emissions.

The associations strongly believe that the EU ETS MRV (Monitoring, Reporting and Verification) requirements for international flights must be aligned with the CORSIA SARPs and expect that Annex 16, Volume IV, will be implemented in Europe to monitor and report emissions from international aviation. The SARPs have been the fruit of several years of technical work in ICAO and are just as robust as the EU ETS MRV.

The associations are also concerned by the overlapping compliance requirements between EU ETS and CORSIA from 2021 and stress that the implementation of CORSIA from 1 January 2021 obviates the need for existing and new economic measures to be applied to international aviation emissions on a regional or national basis. At the European level, all international flights to/from/between airports in the EEA should be subject exclusively to CORSIA and removed from the scope of the EU ETS as from 1 January 2021. If the EU were to attempt to exclude international intra-EEA flights from the application of CORSIA or subject international flights to both EU ETS and CORSIA, this would set a very damaging precedent, incurring in ineffective and costly duplications and compromising the implementation of CORSIA.

For more information, please contact Satu Dahl, ERA Manager Corporate Communications, on
+44 (0)1276 485582, +44 (0)7713 984792 or by email at satu.dahl@eraa.org.