London, 6 October - IETA welcomes the adoption by the International Civil Aviation Organisation of a global market-based mechanism (GMBM) at its triennial General Assembly in Montreal. After formal plenary approval tomorrow, ICAO’s decision will mean that the airline industry will be the first sector to adopt a global sectoral market.

ICAO intends for the global aviation industry to achieve carbon neutral growth from 2020 by requiring participating aviation operators to offset any additional emissions above a 2020 baseline. The system will be voluntary from 2021 and mandatory from 2027.

“IETA has always supported the development of market mechanisms as the lowest-cost way to achieve significant reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions, and we are pleased that the global aviation industry has come to the same conclusion,” Dirk Forrister, CEO of IETA said. “We applaud the leadership of the countries and airlines that have indicated their intent to participate in early market development, which will both help the global environment and bolster public confidence in the program.”

IETA notes that ICAO has plenty of work to do in developing its system for monitoring, reporting and verification of emissions, as well as establishing the criteria to select which offsets will be eligible for use.

“We hope that ICAO will take the opportunity to learn from the great amount of work that’s been done by the existing carbon market programs in developing accurate and efficient MRV systems, as well as from the high-quality offset standards that have been developed by the UNFCCC and other verified compliance protocols,” Forrister said. “Once the decisions on these technical issues are made, this market has tremendous potential to deliver the ICAO goals at low cost.”