Aviation emissions scheme gets support in Helsinki

The implementation of the ICAO global aviation emissions scheme CORSIA requires strong commitment from the whole aviation sector.

The ICAO Regional Workshop that concluded yesterday brought together representatives from 36 ICAO Member States, airlines and international organizations and succeeded in addressing practical actions for implementing the ICAO Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA),said the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority-FICORA in a press release.

"This year will be significant for the future achievements of CORSIA in limiting aviation emissions. The CORSIA Regional Workshop in Helsinki provided confirmation that the aviation sector is strongly committed to reducing aviation emissions and implementing CORSIA. We are pleased that the same message will be given out from the four other regional workshops held by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO)", emphasised Traficom’s Director General of Civil Aviation Pekka Henttu.

The event held in Helsinki on 26 and 27 March 2019 was aimed primarily at ICAO’s Member States from the European and North Atlantic Region and was one of the five ICAO Regional Workshops on CORSIA which together cover all ICAO Regions. The Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom organised the Helsinki event following a request received from ICAO.

"Environmental matters will also be strongly on the agenda of the ICAO Assembly next autumn, and Finland is strongly committed to advancing the common emissions targets for aviation. I am convinced that, together with the whole international aviation community, we can create a strong and balanced global emissions scheme", Henttu added

CORSIA Regional Workshop highlighted practical solutions for CORSIA implementation

‘The ICAO CORSIA Regional Workshop in Helsinki was very successful. Developing awareness and expertise is an important part of CORSIA implementation’, emphasises Traficom’s Chief Adviser Katja Lohko-Soner, who was the moderator for the event.

The CORSIA framework has succeeded in specifying the standards and recommended practices for monitoring, reporting and verification of international aviation CO2 emissions. The ICAO CORSIA Regional Workshop explored what the emissions monitoring plan should contain and how it will be implemented in practice.

"We focused on standards and particularly on monitoring of CO2 emissions. The workshops emphasised direct cooperation between authorities and operators when finalising the emissions monitoring plan", explained Lohko-Soner.

"Another example of cooperation is ICAO’s ACT-CORSIA buddy partnership programme, in which the donor States offer support and training for the implementation of CORSIA. We obtained excellent examples and practical perspectives from this, in fact, as both the donor States and the recipient States shared their experiences of the programme", Lohko-Soner continued.

ICAO ACT-CORSIA buddy partnership programme supports emissions scheme expertise

During the workshop, ICAO encouraged the participant States to continue their good and wide-ranging cooperation and to renew or add new buddy partnerships.

"CORSIA Buddy Partnerships are a cornerstone of ICAO’s plan to support States to prepare for CORSIA implementation. At ICAO, we want to encourage the cooperation between Member States in CORSIA implementation, and the assistance provided under the ACT-CORSIA Buddy Partnership programme (External link), through which technical experts provided by donor States have been providing on-site training, and closely follow-up on the preparation and implementation of the recipient States’ CORSIA MRV system, in the spirit of ICAO’s No Country Left Behind initiative. In this respect, the Regional Workshop in Helsinki was very successful, the discussions were fruitful, and we achieved wide-ranging progress in the capacity-building of CORSIA", said Jane Hupe, Deputy Director, Environment, from the ICAO Secretariat.

The ICAO standards and recommended practices for the monitoring, reporting and verification of CO2 emissions became applicable on 1 January 2019. Aviation is the first transport sector that has succeeded in forming a common, global scheme for reducing carbon emissions.