The European Commission's top environment official confirmed on Tuesday he had decided to soften a plan to include aviation in the European Union's emissions trading scheme. Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said he would limit the first year of the industry's inclusion in the scheme to intra-EU flights only, confirming comments by EU sources to Reuters on Monday. "We propose (in) 2011 intra-EU flights and 2012 for flights in and out of the European Union," he told reporters.

The European Commission, the EU's executive, is due to unveil its proposals on Wednesday. The airline industry and some of the EU's biggest trading partners, including the United States, have said the European Commission was being too ambitious with its original proposal. The EU s emissions trading scheme is the main tool of Brussels for fighting global warming and meeting targets for cutting pollution under the Kyoto Protocol.

It puts a limit on the amount of carbon dioxide that big polluters such as power plants and oil refineries can emit. But it has so far excluded international aviation which is producing more and more pollution as air travel booms.
(Planet Ark, 20/12/2006)