Global Airport News

Four of the world's top airlines have backed a global scheme to curb carbon emissions and hope the proposal will be included in a broader U.N. pact to fight climate change.

It is the first time airline firms have banded together to make recommendations to U.N. climate change officials on how to tackle the sector's carbon emissions.

Aviation is responsible for about two percent of global greenhouse gas pollution and that share is expected to rise, as leading green groups and the European Union demand the sector clean up its act.

Air France/KLM, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Virgin Atlantic, airport operator BAA and international NGO The Climate Group have proposed a deal that covers all carbon pollution from the international aviation sector.

This would ensure equal treatment for airlines and open the way to global emissions trading within the sector and possibly with other industries and countries.

"There are some airlines that still think "we're only 2 pct of global emissions therefore let us get on with our job in peace," said Mark Kenber, policy director of The Climate Group, which advises businesses and governments on how to cut carbon pollution.

"That in Europe, not least as a PR pitch, doesn't work anymore," he told Reuters by telephone from London.

"If airlines don't propose something credible environmentally but also that works well for them economically, then they will get saddled with some other option."

The proposal by the six-member aviation deal group is to be presented to climate change negotiators later on Monday in Bonn in Germany, where representatives from 175 nations are meeting to work on a broader climate pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

Negotiations for the post-Kyoto pact are due to be wrapped up in December in Copenhagen.