US and international pressure got aviation a 13-year pass on climate – now the EU must end it

The document contends that the EU's decision to exempt international aviation from the ETS since 2012, largely due to US political and industry pressure, has failed to reduce emissions. It criticizes the ICAO's CORSIA framework as ineffective and calls for the EU to resume pricing international aviation emissions, proposing that the resulting revenue be directed toward global climate finance for vulnerable countries.

• International aviation emissions are currently exempt from the EU ETS, a situation resulting from US government and industry pressure in 2011-2012. This exemption covers 61% of European aviation's total emissions, with unregulated emissions between 2012 and 2023 equaling the total emissions of Greece for that same period.
• The environmental impact of aviation is underestimated because focus is primarily on CO2, while non-CO2 effects—such as heat-trapping soot particles from contrails—are estimated by scientific consensus to be as great as, or up to twice as great as, CO2 emissions alone.
• The International Civil Aviation Organisation's (ICAO) Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) is deemed inadequate because it lacks an emissions cap and only requires offsets for emissions exceeding 85% of 2019 levels starting in 2027.
• The exemption of international flights from the ETS resulted in a loss of €26 billion for EU member states between 2012 and 2023. The authors propose that revenue from pricing international aviation should be used for climate finance to support the most climate-vulnerable populations globally.

APA

O’Leary, A., & Bonnet-Cantalloube, B. (2025). US and international pressure got aviation a 13-year pass on climate – now the EU must end it. Carbon Market Watch. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/2025/07/09/us-and-international-pressure-got-aviation-a-13-year-pass-on-climate-now-the-eu-must-end-it/

Chicago

O’Leary, Aoife, and Bastien Bonnet-Cantalloube. US and international pressure got aviation a 13-year pass on climate – now the EU must end it. Carbon Market Watch, 2025. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/2025/07/09/us-and-international-pressure-got-aviation-a-13-year-pass-on-climate-now-the-eu-must-end-it/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=O’Leary |first1=Aoife |last2=Bonnet-Cantalloube |first2=Bastien |title=US and international pressure got aviation a 13-year pass on climate – now the EU must end it |publisher=Carbon Market Watch |date=9 July 2025 |url=https://carbonmarketwatch.org/2025/07/09/us-and-international-pressure-got-aviation-a-13-year-pass-on-climate-now-the-eu-must-end-it/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{oleary2025international, author = {O’Leary, Aoife and Bonnet-Cantalloube, Bastien}, title = {{US and international pressure got aviation a 13-year pass on climate – now the EU must end it}}, publisher = {Carbon Market Watch}, year = {2025}, month = jul, url = {https://carbonmarketwatch.org/2025/07/09/us-and-international-pressure-got-aviation-a-13-year-pass-on-climate-now-the-eu-must-end-it/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }