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Empresas y finanzas

U.N. aviation body says emissions proposal by year-end


    (Reuters) - The head of the United Nations body that oversees civil aviation said on Friday that his agency still plans to have a proposal on measures to address emissions from aviation by the end of 2012, even as critics push for faster change.

    "I read the press like anyone. I listen to all of the criticisms which have been stated by some about the pace," Secretary General Raymond Benjamin told Reuters in an interview marking his reappointment for a new three-year term at the helm of the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

    "You have to understand that ICAO is an international organization with a membership of 191 countries, and you have to find a consensus."

    Benjamin said ICAO's governing council is considering four unspecified options, and two others have been eliminated. The council will be asked this month to endorse those four options and identify next steps.

    A trade conflict over the European Union's emissions trading scheme has pushed ICAO to accelerate its hunt for "market-based measures" to combat climate change.

    An EU requirement that all airlines buy carbon to offset flights that use the bloc's airports has stirred threats of an international trade war, with the potential to disrupt global air traffic.

    More than two dozen countries, including the United States and China, oppose the regime.

    (Reporting By Allison Martell in New York and Susan Taylor in Toronto; Editing by Janet Guttsman)