Airline CO2 trading blocked

A voluntary carbon dioxide emission-trading scheme, proposed by British Airways (BA), has surprisingly been blocked by Lufthansa.

BA wanted to introduce the schema to signal that the airline industry was serious about tackling its impact on global warming. The move comes after damaging revelations that shows European gains in reducing CO2 emissions under Kyoto will be wiped out by the rise in emissions from airlines, which is not included in the Kyoto agreement.

Wolfgang Mayrhuber, chief executive of Lufthansa, said "We want to fully understand the consequences before we go for emissions-trading. It would be better to work on improving technology to reduce emissions as this will help everybody."

Paula Bermann, Carbon-info.org's campaign manager, said: "It is disappointing to see Lufthansa block the UK initiative. If everyone says that 'it is not my fault' and no-one takes responsibility for their CO2 emissions, then we are never going to get on top of global warming."

Mrs. Bermann urged everyone to boycott Lufthansa to signal that they were unhappy with the lack of responsibility displayed by Mr. Mayrhuber, who unfortunately was promoting the 'technology-will-save-us-all' approach, which is unlikely to resolve the problem of climate change in time.

If the emission-trading scheme is introduced, airline passengers will have to pay for the CO2 pollution produced by their airline. This is expected to add another Ł4-5 to the ticket price.