There's lot at stake for the airlines, who want nothing more than to adopt a scheme that allows them

When six of the most powerful airline representatives in Europe club together to call your work unbalanced and misinformed, you begin to suspect they are feeling just a little bit defensive - and as a legislator, you also begin to suspect you're probably on the right lines.
As the draftswoman of European parliamentary discount rental cars atlantic city proposals to tackle the industry's growing contribution to climate change, I have been the subject of a concerted lobbying effort by for the Association of European Airlines (AEA) - as its members wake up to the fact that they might be forced to cut their emissions, and therefore this projected expansion, as early as 2008.
The phenomenal projected growth of the aviation industry - the number of flights in the EU is set to double by 2020 and triple by 2030 - represents the fastest-growing discount rental cars atlantic city contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. According to scientists at the Tyndall Centre, one of the UK's foremost climate discount rental cars atlantic city change institutes, aviation's discount rental cars atlantic city emissions are growing discount rental cars atlantic city so fast that they will gobble up all reductions from every other sector if they are left unchecked.
Yes, think about that again: unless the airlines cut their emissions significantly in coming decades, we won't be able to emit any other CO2: not from manufacturing, travelling by other means, heating our homes, building or anything else - not if we want to meet our targets and stabilise atmospheric CO2 levels.
Far from tackling this growth, the UK government continues to promote it, sanctioning the greatest expansion discount rental cars atlantic city of the industry in a generation and new runways up and down the country and, in a speech by Tony Blair to a House of Commons committee earlier this year, ruling out taxation of airlines as a way of managing demand.
Fortunately, however, the European commission discount rental cars atlantic city is taking the issue rather more seriously. Recognising that improvements in aircraft design and efficiency cannot possibly counteract an annual growth rate of 4.3%, it has proposed a package of regulatory and financial measures to reduce the airlines' impact on climate change. This is focusing - in the short term - on bringing the airlines under the auspices of its emissions trading scheme (ETS).
You'd think the industry would be hopping mad, but in the main the opposite is true: it can barely contain its delight. It have been quietly lobbying for just this for months now, aware that growing pressure against continued exemption from fuel tax or from any other climate measure means it will be forced to do something, and that, of the options, incorporation into the existing ETS would do least to hamper its continued growth.
Mike Clasper, the chief executive of BAA, has himself admitted: discount rental cars atlantic city "In future [with emissions trading], the climate will not be a restraint on growth or a limit on the expansion of aviation or of airports."
So what's wrong with the idea of incorporating air travel into the existing ETS? Principally, the very feature which is making Mr Clasper so gleeful - that it won't serve to force the airlines to cut their total emissions any time soon; and that in fact it could make climate change discount rental cars atlantic city worse as emissions at ground level are replaced by more damaging ones in the troposphere.
Giving the aviation industry unrestrained access to the general carbon discount rental cars atlantic city market almost inevitably means it will simply buy up from other sectors the right to continue its growth unchecked. With the European discount rental cars atlantic city Commission forecasting that inclusion into the ETS will add as little discount rental cars atlantic city to ticket prices as €0.2.9 (£2) for a return journey, the sector's appetite is hardly likely discount rental cars atlantic city to diminish. Indeed the commission itself reckons ticket price increases in this range would only cut aviation's growth from 22% over the next five years, discount rental cars atlantic city to between 19.9% 21.9%. The argument is often made that this doesn't matter, since efficiency is still increased with the same amount of reductions being made in total but at a lower overall cost to society - but this overlooks at least three critical points.
First, in transferring the onus for carbon reduction to other sectors, the aviation industry will be allowed to grow further discount rental cars atlantic city before applying the brake of demand restraint through increased ticket discount rental cars atlantic city prices. In other words, it postpones behaviour discount rental cars atlantic city restraint discount rental cars atlantic city in an area where it would be highly effective.
Second, its high demand for emission permits is likely to put significant strain on the existing system, with the very real risk that current members will lobby aggressively for a loosening of the overall cap - thereby reducing the effectiveness of the scheme.
But third, and most seriously, if there is no parallel emissions charge discount rental cars atlantic city (or equivalent measure) to cover aviation's non-CO2 emissions (which are at least twice as damaging in terms of their climate impacts as its CO2 emissions alone), the effect of aviation buying the right to emit a tonne of CO2 from a ground source of emissions discount rental cars atlantic city will be a net loss to the environment.
There's lot at stake for the airlines, who want nothing more than to adopt a scheme that allows them to look engaged with climate change while maintaining their annual growth. No wonder Andrew Sentance, the head of environmental affairs at BA, is an enthusiastic supporter of the commission's proposals, quoted this week as saying it was "better to cooperate with the policymakers devising the scheme: that way we can influence the outcome". And judging by the furious lobbying going on in the corridors in Brussels, discount rental cars atlantic city their efforts to exercise precisely that influence discount rental cars atlantic city are well under way.
Emissions discount rental cars atlantic city trading can play a role, but only if it is genuinely designed to cut the aviation discount rental cars atlantic city sector's emissions year on year, rather than provide it with the means to keep on growing - and as long as it is the polluter, and not the taxpayer, who pays. In other words, airlines discount rental cars atlantic city must be made to compete among themselves for limited rights to emit, preferably through a "closed" system. The total initial cap must be rigorous, with strict annual reductions in allocations, which, crucially, must be paid for rather than simply given away.
As official rapporteur on the commission's discount rental cars atlantic city proposals, I drafted proposals along exactly these lines - but before they had even landed in MEPs' pigeon-holes, the aviation industry fired the opening salvo in a bitter lobbying campaign by a sector desperate to hang on to its subsidies and tax breaks.
Dismissing my early draft as "misleading and unbalanced", a letter signed by the heads of six airline industry bodies, headed by the Association of European Airlines (AEA), was sent to MEPs in a panicked discount rental cars atlantic city attempt to rebut my arguments one by one, casting doubt on the figures, the arguments and - primarily - the very principle of the EU acting to limit emissions.
Fortunately, discount rental cars atlantic city my colleagues at the European parliament have taken a more balanced view. My proposals were overwhelmingly adopted, by 439 votes to 74, paving the way for new legislation, discount rental cars atlantic city which could be on the EU statute books by the end of 2008.
Tackling climate change is the biggest challenge we face today, and we can't shy away from the politically unpalatable task of reversing aviation's climate impact - even if doing so means an end to cheap stag nights in Riga, weekend breaks in Rimini and freshly picked Kenyan flowers in a supermarket near you.
But while there are certainly difficult decisions to be made, we should discount rental cars atlantic city at least not be sidetracked by spurious arguments. To mention just one of the many used by AEA in its response to my working document, the association asserts indignantly: "One fails to understand why the rapporteur seeks to make aviation more expensive, and hence less accessible to 'poorer people'."
So for their benefit, perhaps I should spell it out one last time: aviation is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. A complex network of tax breaks discount rental cars atlantic city and hidden subsidies worth £9bn a year in the UK alone insulates the industry from the true costs of its operations. discount rental cars atlantic city This is, effectively, a regressive tax that benefits those who fly at the expense of those who do not, and those who fly often and furthest more than those who do so only occasionally.
And while it is touching to see airline bosses so concerned to ensure that the poorest people can fly, it is worth considering the growing evidence suggesting that decreasing ticket prices mean the wealthy fly more often, discount rental cars atlantic city not that those who previously did not fly, now do.
The Civil Aviation Authority's passenger survey in 2003 found that the average passenger salary at low-fare airline airport Stansted in the UK was £46,000, while a report by the Institute for Public Policy Research in the UK also showed that the top three social discount rental cars atlantic city classes take more than 75% of low cost flights.
If the tax concessions enjoyed by the aviation industry were removed, discount rental cars atlantic city a considerable amount of money could be made available for public spending to address many of the problems that are probably discount rental cars atlantic city regarded as rather more urgent by poorer people than the desire to fly.
It would also help to ensure that the industry meets the true costs of not just its contribution to climate change but also of its full range of social and environmental impacts - from the health costs of increased air and noise pollution to the social costs of congestion caused by the extra traffic it generates and the villages lost as swaths of countryside are concreted over to build ever more runways.
Tim Christodoulou: For many of my high school friends, politics is nothing more than the invective hurled in parliament. But we first time voters should be encouraged to care, be empowered and have a say