Carbon Offset and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation
CORSIA addresses any increase in CO2 emissions from international aviation above 2020 levels. It is an economic measure that completes the industry’s long-standing, four-pillar sustainability strategy alongside operational, technical, and infrastructure improvements.
It is forecast that CORSIA will mitigate around 2.5 billion metric tons of CO2 and generate over $40 billion in climate finance between 2021 and 2035. Airlines asked for its implementation and will pay the bill.
As of 1 January 2019, all carriers are required to report their CO2 emissions on an annual basis, although only flights between volunteering countries are subject to offsetting requirements in the initial stages of the scheme. By the end of March 2019, 79 ICAO member nations had volunteered to apply CORSIA.
To assist with CORSIA monitoring, reporting, and verification requirements, IATA developed the online reporting system FRED+. FRED+ facilitates the task of preparing emission reports, chiefly by pairing airline operators directly with their national authorities for the safe and secure transmission of emissions data. Coinciding with the start of the CORSIA baseline period, FRED+ went live on 1 January 2019 with all its core system functionalities fully implemented and tested.
CORSIA provides global standards for offsetting that have won the support of the entire industry and many national governments. There are, however, exceptions that seek to deviate from the agreed international standards for CORSIA and to use carbon pricing to justify levies on air transport. The European Union (EU) and China, for example, have adopted unilateral rules for monitoring and reporting emissions, and there are proposals to reintroduce environmental ticket taxes in the Netherlands and Sweden.
Such decisions could be perceived as a disavowal of CORSIA as the agreed, multilateral approach on aviation climate action. This is particularly disconcerting given that the governments behind such decisions were instrumental in reaching an agreement on CORSIA at the 39th ICAO Assembly—an agreement that recognizes CORSIA as the market-based measure for emissions from international aviation.