28 November,2010 01:45 AM IST | | Bobby Anthony
Passengers flying from India to any airport in the European Union (EU) including London's Heathrow Airport, may have to shell out an additional carbon emission surcharge of roughly $25 dollars on their air tickets from January 1, 2012, according to well-informed sources.
"Airline companies will have to pay up, and they are expected to collect this amount from passengers. Each airline will have to pay according to its carbon dioxide emission levels, while airlines themselves can be expected to charge passengers a surcharge of around $25 per seat.
Emissions of passenger aircrafts and per passenger kilometres vary with variables like aircraft size, number of passengers, altitude and distance of the journey. So an airline emitting more carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases would probably charge passengers more," says Vishwajit Dahanukar, managing director of Managing Emissions Pvt. Ltd., a carbon credit trading company.
It's not merely Indian airline companies that will be affected, because the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) legislation will force all airlines flying to, through, or from the EU, to pay for permits for all carbon dioxide tonnes that they emit from 2012.u00a0
Under the legislation, aircraft operators are required to submit independently verified carbon tonne-per-kilometre data to the EU, along with an emissions report for all of 2010, by the end of March 2011. From January 1, 2012, the EU will begin allocating carbon emission quotas to airline companies operating flights departing from or arriving in the EU. Typically, an airline company would have to buy extra carbon 'emission credits' if it surpasses its emission quota.
Besides the civil aviation industry, the shipping industry will also be monitored for carbon emissions. "In fact, 18 months later, the Indian shipping industry will also have to comply with EU's ETS legislation. So we expect to see a shortage of carbon credits in a year's time and they are likely to become expensive.
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Presently, the main trade in carbon credits happens at the European Climate Exchange based in London, though it also unfolds to a small extent through the Mumbai-based Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX-SX)," Dahanukar informs.u00a0u00a0u00a0
It is unclear if Indian airline companies have been making any efforts to comply with the EU's legislation. "I am unable to comment, since I cannot reach my colleagues," Kingfisher Airline's official spokesperson Prakash Mirpuri, said in an SMS to Sunday MiD DAY.
