ICAO Council adopts CORSIA emissions units

The ICAO Council approved the eligible emissions units for the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) today, reaching another important milestone toward CORSIA global implementation supporting worldwide efforts against climate change.

The Council's decision follows on recommendations it received from the Technical Advisory Body (TAB) it established for this purpose, and establishes a set of eligible emissions units complying with offsetting requirements in the 2021-2023 pilot phase of CORSIA from the following six programmes:

• American Carbon Registry
• China GHG Voluntary Emission Reduction Program
• Clean Development Mechanism
• Climate Action Reserve
• The Gold Standard
• Verified Carbon Standard

The emissions units are issued to activities which commenced as of 1 January 2016, and in respect of emissions reductions occurring through 31 December 2020, subject to each programme's respective scope of eligibility. The list of eligible emissions units will eventually be publicly available on the ICAO CORSIA website.

"Today's decision is the result of a robust assessment of emissions units programmes against a set of criteria agreed by ICAO Member States," noted ICAO Council President Salvatore Sciacchitano. "It will ensure that CORSIA is both practical and robust, and represents an important environmental milestone."

"CORSIA remains on track and we're encouraged that this latest Council progress will bring clarity to the requirements to be placed on airlines," stressed ICAO Secretary General Fang Liu. "ICAO will continue its efforts to drive further CORSIA progress and prepare our member States for its pilot phase through the assistance, capacity-building, and training for CORSIA currently being conducted through our ACT-CORSIA programme."

"With the Council's approval of eligible emissions units, ICAO now has all of the pieces in place to implement CORSIA," said ICAO Deputy Director of Environment, Jane Hupe. "We have come a long way in a short amount of time and continue to encourage greater commitment from our member States toward climate action."