London, 28 June - IETA welcomes the ICAO Council's adoption this week of monitoring, reporting and verification rules for its CORSIA global offsetting system.
CORSIA, or the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation, is the first global sectoral emissions reduction system. Airlines will be required to calculate annually the emissions from their flights and buy carbon offsets equivalent to any increase over a baseline of 2019-2020 average emissions.
The Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) adopted this week lay out the technical guidance on how airlines should monitor, verify and report their fleets’ carbon emissions.
“IETA broadly welcomes the timely adoption of the SARPs,” says Sophy Greenhalgh, IETA Director. “Entities can now get going with the critical element of developing the sectoral baseline for calculating emissions going forward.”
However, ICAO has yet to establish rules on which offset standards will be approved for use in CORSIA.
“We are now awaiting news on the set-up of the process and governance for approving offset programmes and what further limitations and restrictions will apply with regards to vintage timeframes and project types,” Greenhalgh says.
“Significant work in a short timeframe is now required to develop further details around emission unit eligibility, to give the carbon market and investors time to ensure a highly environmentally robust supply pipeline is available for CORSIA.”
IETA calls for carbon market experts to add their input before those decisions are taken.
“We welcome further opportunities for consultations on program design details,” Greenhalgh says. “We urge that ICAO make clear how it intends to intensify its process so that it can progress work before the next Council meeting in November on emissions unit criteria and other operational elements of CORSIA.”
"It is essential to establish the quality specifications and approval processes as soon as possible for the market to deliver offsets that meet CORSIA’s environmental objectives.”
