Profits on a silver-plate for the aviation industry?

When vision and mission diverges.

Hardly anyone will disagree that more sectors should be pulled into the carbon trading system that is supposed to reduce the emissions and provide for further cuts in the future. The aviation industry is one of those sectors and it is especially important because of its growth-rate. Therefore there is a huge support when the European Commission announces this ambition and vision.

But there is also a concern that the attempt may backfire and that just one more sector will reap wind-fall profits because of the way the system works. The UK-based Institute for Public Policy Research, IPPR, estimates that the industry will make a 4 billion Euro per year windfall profit in the same way as the energy sector has done. IPPR, and others with them, argue that the emission rights should be auctioned to the companies to ensure that the money is funded for development and not handed out as profit on a silver-plate.