North America opposed to inclusion of aviation in EU ETS

US, Canadian and Mexican representatives at ICAO have urged the agency to intervene to prevent the European Union from unilaterally proceeding with applying its emissions trading scheme to airlines (New York Times, 09-Sep-2010). Airlines are scheduled to join the EU Emissions Trading Scheme from 2012. The representatives are pushing ICAO to pass a resolution that ensures that countries "seeking to implement an emissions trading system that applies to other contracting states' aircraft operators" do so only "on the basis of mutual agreement". European Union commissioner for climate action, Connie Hedegaard, stated the pressure amounts to the US requesting "veto right over what measures states can take to limit the climate impacts of aviation".