CORSIA offsetting – There is a voluntary international offset scheme called CORSIA which aims to stabilise CO2 emissions at 2020 levels, administered by the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organisations ICAO. States can participate voluntarily from 2021 to 2026, whilst it only becomes mandatory in 2027.
UK ETS – The UK Government is considering whether UK operators should comply with the UK ETS (Emissions Trading System), set up since the UK has left the EU scheme, as well as the CORSIA scheme. The Aviation Environmental Federation (AEF) has responded that airline operators with international flights covered by the UK’s emission trading scheme should be required to comply with both rather than just a low CORSIA cost.
The UK is a council member on the ICAO. The AEF article says that, as well as leading on offsets to emissions from flying the UK could use the next Assembly meeting in 2022 to bring about more effective actions.
Air Passenger Duty – The tax on short-haul flights is a minimum £13 per passenger departing from a UK airport (ie two taxes for UK internal return, one for return for abroad.) The Guardian Mar 2021 says that Friends of the Earth climate campaigner Jenny Bates said: “It beggars belief that ministers would cut domestic air passenger duty and encourage more people to fly around the UK.”
Subsidy of flying. Aviation pays no tax on its fuel, and therefore flying is much cheaper than going by train, whether within the UK or abroad, with no contribution relating to the high CO2 per Km emissions.