Germany, UK, France oppose ETS airspace plan

The EU’s biggest countries will not support a proposal to regulate CO2 emissions in local airspace that would cover many non-EU airlines, they told a meeting of member state representatives in Brussels last week.

France, the UK and Germany want the ‘stop the clock’ derogation – whereby only intra-European flights are covered by the EU's emissions trading system (ETS) – to continue until at least 2016.

The European Commission has proposed regulating emissions within European airspace from all flights to and from Europe.