Hope is fading for a global deal to regulate the airline industry's greenhouse gas emissions ahead of a fall deadline, even though failure could push the industry back to the brink of a trade war over the European Union's emissions trading system.
Last November the EU suspended its controversial scheme to force all airlines to buy carbon credits for any flight arriving in or departing from European airspace.
The scheme had pitted European states against China, the United States, India and others, who said it violated their sovereignty. The EU said it had to act, after more than a decade of inaction on the environmental impact of aviation.
European officials gave the United Nations' agency that governs aviation, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), more time to craft a compromise in the form of a global regulatory regime.
19/05/13 Reuters/Economic Times
