Airlines must monitor vapour trails under new EU climate rules

Airlines operating flights from European airports will soon have to report the estimated climate impact of vapour trails from jet engines to the European Commission, as well as the amount of carbon dioxide they emit annually.

The airline industry had lobbied hard against the new rules — adopted by government delegates behind closed doors on Friday (30 August) — saying there wasn’t enough research data on the effects of contrails.

But the European Commission, while acknowledging “inherent uncertainties” about the non-CO2 climate impact of the aviation industry, said “the net contribution to global warming [was] well known” and that the new reporting requirements would help to further knowledge.

“Studies have shown that the uncertainty in these effects is not a sufficient reason to avoid action,” the EU executive said.

Contrails contain nitrogen oxides, black carbon and other climate harming substances, and have been shown to promote cloud cover in the high atmosphere where, unlike low lying clouds, they help trap heat.

Some estimates suggest their contribution to global warming is at least as much as that of the 2% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions that come from aircraft.

Environmental groups were critical of a temporary carve-out for long haul flights under the final agreed text. The rules will apply next year only to flights between airports in the European Economic Area – that is, the EU plus Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.

“Long-haul airlines receive preferential treatment once again from the EU,” said Krisztina Hencz, aviation policy manager at Brussels lobby group Transport & Environment. “They have worked hard to undermine action and research on non-CO2 and they are being rewarded for their efforts.”

“At the end of the day, this proposal was there to help better understand the problem of non-CO2 and this effort has been hampered,” Hencz told Euronews, noting that airlines had only won a limited concession from lawmakers – the rules will extend to all flights into and out of the EU from 2027.

The legislation follows a recent reform of Europe’s emissions trading system (EU ETS), under which certain companies must bid for allowances for each tonne of CO2 they emit. The price is currently around €70 per tonne – approximately the emissions of a single passenger’s transatlantic round trip.

The new EU law also sets out rules on how to estimate the carbon footprint of sustainable aviation fuels, which can be produced from biofuels, organic waste or green hydrogen. Any fuel whose life-cycle carbon footprint is at least 70% lower than that of standard kerosene will be rated as zero-emissions for the purpose of the trading scheme. Where renewable electricity is used to synthesise sustainable fuels, it must be from newly deployed, dedicated wind turbines, solar arrays or similar capacity.