India joins US and 15 other countries against EUs ETS

WASHINGTON: India has joint the US and 15 other major countries in opposing European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) which requires carriers flying to or from Europe to offset their carbon emissions.

The two day meeting hosted by the United States to chalk out a common strategy against the EU's emission trading scheme concluded yesterday.

"They (India) have been clear both in that meeting and any number of times thereafter that they are strongly opposed to the application of the ETS and have had quite strong and vigorous words concerning the application of the ETS to foreign carriers," a senior administration official said on condition of anonymity.

Since the meeting was held under what is called "Chatham House Rules" -- which is to say people are encouraged to speak freely and candidly because what they say isn't going to be reported afterwards - the senior administration official was not at the liberty to divulge India's point of view during the meeting.

India, in fact, has hosted meetings against EU's ETS in New Delhi in the past.

"So I think you can get a pretty good flavor of where India stands, looking at other things that they've said, but I'm not going to discuss what they said in this meeting," the official said, noting that probably every country outside of Europe has opposed the emission trading system on both legal and policy grounds.

"But at the same time as we have opposed the application of the ETS in that manner, we have been strongly supportive and many countries strongly supportive of the objective of reducing emissions from aviation," the official noted.

The meeting was convened in Washington with a group of major aviation countries for supporting the process of making progress on reducing emissions in the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which is the multilateral body charged with handling international aviation.