Europe Backs Off Economic Suicide Plan, Scraps Move To Impose Carbon Charges On Non-EU Airlines!

BildA couple years ago, Europe was acting deadly serious about forcing the rest of the world’s airlines flying in out of Europe to purchase airline emissions certificates. The rescue of the planet was at stake.

Photo: NASA, public domain.

European bureaucrats actually deluded themselves into thinking the USA, China, Russia and other global powers would dance to their tune. Background info: herehere and here.

That was the fantasy.

Now reality has hit European bureaucrats once again. Suddenly Connie Hedegaard and her EU bureacrats have decided they don’t need to charge foreign airlines to purchase CO2 emission certificates every time they fly over, into, or out of the kingdom of the EU after all. They’ve realized that 14% of the planet in favor of Kyoto can’t really boss around the other 86% who are not. It turns out that protecting multi-billion euro Airbus orders and avoiding trade sanctions are more important than climate protection after all. Thank God for the wonders of the self-correcting free market.

European media outlets are (barely) reporting that international flights may continue flying over, in, and out of Europe without having to buy pollution permits. The law applies only to flights between two European airports, so reports the Wall Street Journal here.

The climate bedwetting Klimaretter here reports that Germany’s Greens are outraged by the European compromise, saying the compromise is “clearly too little for the challenges stemming from the worldwide growth in air traffic.”

Klimaretter adds that the compromise may be only be stopped by the EU-Parliament, whose official vote is still pending.”

Boy, that’s a going to be a really tough vote: Do we commit economic suicide or not?

 

15 responses to “Europe Backs Off Economic Suicide Plan, Scraps Move To Impose Carbon Charges On Non-EU Airlines!”

  1. Kurt in Switzerland

    Meanwhile, there are some nefarious types at work:

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-04/germany-demands-nine-airlines-comply-with-eu-carbon-marke.html

    And Mme. Hedegaard would be summarily shown the door in any organization with an ounce of personal accountability, for this outrageous (Freudian?) outburst, from last September, containing a truthful admission:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/10313261/EU-policy-on-climate-change-is-right-even-if-science-was-wrong-says-commissioner.html

    Kurt in Switzerland

    1. Bernd Felsche

      That ought ot be Mlle Hedegaard as she still thinks like a 12-year-old.

  2. ES
    1. Kurt in Switzerland

      ES –

      They’ve been trying to get a global deal for a decade – even did great press releases on the prospect last year, when they again postponed their plans. An ICAO deal ain’t gonna happen.

      This is just another tax. Saps productivity, threatens business, increases costs to the consumer. Good for bureaucrats, NGOs and carbon-offset companies.

      But now they’ve created a very “unlevel” playing field (EU short haul carriers are disproportionally penalized). They have boxed themselves into the proverbial corner.

      Of course the simple solution would be to scrap the entire scheme. But that would be tantamount to admitting that it was all symbolic anyway (a massive loss of face for Mme. Hedegaard & co.).

      The Emperor’s New Clothes.

      Kurt in Switzerland

    2. DirkH

      With NATO reputation in freefall, fat chance…

  3. mwhite

    “Boy, that’s a going to be a really tough vote: Do we commit economic suicide or not?”

    Don’t speak too soon.

  4. Stephen Richards

    They are still commiting economic suicide by imposing said taxes on european airlines.

  5. John F. Hultquist

    This green-guilt and hair-shirt stuff is a never ending source of entertainment. Too bad we all have to pay and suffer.

    The Wikipedia entry for Cilice says: “In Molière’s play, Tartuffe, the title character is shown to be a religious hypocrite when he wears a hair shirt with the hair lining facing outward, so that it can be seen, rather than felt.”
    New title characters: Connie Hedegaard and her EU bureacrats

  6. oebele bruinsma

    As the EU is for an important part governed by control freaks, economic suicide or comas in various forms is quite likely.

  7. DirkH

    Pierre, NTZ has been inaccessible with a database error for most of today. Just sayin’.

    1. Mindert Eiting

      I had the same problem yesterday and today.

  8. Pointman

    “What will be conveniently forgotten, is the reason the EU decided to act unilaterally in the first place, back in those heady days when climate alarmism was at its height, was that the ICAO had already kicked the issue about for fifteen years and could never even approach any sort of agreement.

    It’ll be a graceful exit from a political tight spot, because the alternative is unthinkable for Europe in its present fragile economic state; a trade war. One can only hope that wise heads will prevail in Brussels.”

    http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/legislation-by-regulation/

    Nice to see the EU grovelling.

    Pointman

    1. DirkH

      Some people will have spent their entire “working” lives trying to accomplish this.
      Poor sods. 2 Dollar whores.

  9. Layne

    I love this site because the articles are often so upbeat. It’s nice to see that all the hard work of skeptics is paying off.

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