UN aviation emissions body decried for hiring industry lobbyist

Environmental groups have criticised the UN body tasked with cutting global aircraft emissions for hiring a former senior airline industry lobbyist to a senior role. Campaigners say the recruitment of Michael Gill to the ICAO reflects its flaws and bias toward the industry. Gill was most recently the executive director of the Air Transport Action Group, an industry body, and the director for aviation and environment at the IATA. As such he led lobbying for what environmental groups say was the weakening of emissions reduction measures created by ICAO. The UN body works with member states to reduce the carbon footprint of international aviation via its Corsia scheme, which relies on airlines buying credits to offset the rise in CO2 from a fixed minimum level. Critics say the scheme has not reduced aviation emissions but has offset industry growth. After lobbying by the industry last year, the ICAO agreed to change the baseline for minimum emissions above which carbon offsets are required from 2019-20 to 2019 alone. The former date, which included 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic virtually eliminated flying and dramatically reduced aviation emissions, would have set a lower level of minimum emissions. In his role at IATA Gill was a key lobbyist for the industry’s push to take 2019 as the date to measure emissions. He said the new date would save the airline industry $15b. <br/>