The UN accord reached on Thursday to clean up pollution from international aviation might cost airlines as much as US$23.9 billion annually by 2035.
The companies see it as a victory.
The landmark deal brokered in Montreal creates a global system requiring airlines to compensate for emissions growth after 2020 by funding environmental initiatives. That spares carriers from exactly what they had pushed to avoid: A patchwork of regional environmental regulations that probably would have been even more costly.
Photo: Bloomberg
The accord is less of a win for the planet, at least in the eyes of environmentalists. The deal is voluntary for countries during the first six years. It covers only international flights, not domestic. Rather than forcing emission cuts, it allows airlines to increase pollution in exchange for buying credits that support renewable energy development, forest preservation and other environmental efforts. And while costs would run into the billions, the price per flight would be low enough that it might not impact airfares.
“This agreement is a timid step in the right direction when we need to be sprinting,” Greenpeace UK chief scientist Doug Parr said. “The aviation industry has managed to get away for years with doing nothing about its growing carbon emission problem and now it’s giving itself even more years to do very little.”
Exhaust from international flights accounts for about 2 percent of global greenhouse gases and is expected to triple by 2050.
The deal reached in Montreal is the first international framework to regulate emissions from a single industry.
Not all environmentalists are bemoaning the accord. At least 65 nations have agreed to join during the voluntary phases, including the US, China and Europe. That is enough to cover about 83 percent of international air traffic responsible for 65 percent of the industry’s emissions.
The Environmental Defense Fund estimates the accord’s impact will be the equivalent of removing about 35 million cars from roads each year.
Other winners in the deal include the clean energy industry and companies that develop projects to reduce greenhouse gases flowing into the atmosphere.
Requiring airlines to buy carbon offsets to compensate for their increased emissions might open up billions in financing for solar farms, reforestation projects and programs to cut industrial gases.
The UN’s aviation agency estimates that by 2025, airlines will spend US$1.5 billion to US$6.2 billion on credits backing such projects annually. By 2035, they would spend US$5.3 billion to US$23.9 billion.
“It could mean a significant source of low-carbon development financing,” the fund’s international counsel Annie Petsonk said.
The agreement, brokered by the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization, capped more than six years of negotiations.
As with any global deal, there were compromises.
Brazil, for example, criticized the proposal for months, saying it would unfairly penalize developing nations for increasing their air traffic.
Hours before the deadline, Brazil struck a deal with the US, adding language that might make carbon credits from Brazilian companies eligible for sale as offsets to airlines. In the end, Brazil supported the accord.
Russia and India also opposed the deal. Unlike Brazil, they did not find common ground with nations on the other side of the table.
Lastly, the EU claimed victory in the accord. It pushed emissions to the top of the aviation agenda in 2012, after saying it would require airlines to buy carbon permits for all flights in and out of the region.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”