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Empresas y finanzas

U.N. aviation body says will have emissions plan by March


    MISSISSAUGA, Ontario (Reuters) - The head of the United Nations body that oversees civil aviation said on Monday he expects to have a draft proposal on measures to address emissions from aviation by March 2013, rather than at the end of 2012 as he had said previously.

    The International Civil Aviation Organization's governing council is expected to discuss "market-based measures" to reduce emissions next week. Secretary General Raymond Benjamin said he will ask it to eliminate one of four options on the table at that session. Others could be ruled out when the council meets again in the autumn.

    "I believe that the turning point will be in March next year, when we will put one option on the table, if all goes well," he said. "It depends on the member states."

    Stiff resistance from China, the United States and other nations to the European Union's airline emissions trading scheme has put the Montreal-based ICAO under pressure to come up with a global alternative that could resolve the dispute. In March, Benjamin told Reuters that ICAO was on track to have a draft by the end of 2012.

    Under the EU's system, airlines must buy permits for greenhouse gas emissions for planes operating in, and traveling to and from Europe. Opponents say that violates non-EU states' sovereignty, and that ICAO is the right place to come up with an emission-reduction plan.

    Any global plan would have to be approved by ICAO's 191 member states at their autumn 2013 assembly, but an early consensus on the smaller council would give some reassurance that the UN body can help resolve the escalating conflict over the EU plan.

    Council President Roberto Kobeh Gonzalez told Reuters in March that the four options being considered are mandatory offsetting of emissions from airlines, mandatory offsetting with some revenue-generating mechanism, and two cap-and-trade systems.

    Under one, all aviation emissions could be traded. Under the other, only increases or decreases from an initial emissions baseline could be traded.

    (Reporting By Allison Martell; Editing by Peter Galloway)