By Toby McIntosh
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) will not be webcasting committee discussions about climate change at its triennial Assembly meeting that begins Sept. 24 in Montreal.
Although three of the five ICAO committees will be ”livecast” on the ICAO YouTube channel, two will not be: the Administrative Commission and the Executive Commission, which has the environment mandate. (Committees are called “commissions” in ICAO parlance.)
The agenda for the Executive Commission (here), has 52 items, including matters relating to ICAO’s Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA). Its meetings begin Sept. 25 and are scheduled to last several days.
No Reason Given
An ICAO press official declined to say why the EC meeting is not being streamed. It will be open for media coverage. (Committees are called “commissions” in ICAO parlance.)
One controversial item on the agenda is a proposal by the ICAO Council that would state that the ICAO scheme should be “the only global market-based measure applying to CO2 emissions from international aviation so as to avoid a possible patchwork of duplicative State or regional MBMs….”
This has upset the European Union, which is planning more aggressive regulation of aviation carbon emissions with its Emissions Trading system (ETS). Even though ICAO’s restrictive language would not be legally binding on member countries, it is seen as having adverse consequences. EU countries are expected to oppose the “exclusivity” language at the Assembly meeting and to voice a formal reservation.”
The two-week meeting of all 193 members is conducted with vastly more transparency than usual for ICAO. Draft resolutions are made public in advance, for example, which is not the case for the ICAO Council o standing committees that develop policy in the intervals between Assembly sessions. (See Sept. 11 EYE article about the Assembly meeting: Every Three Years ICAO Acts More Transparent Than Normal)
The schedule for events to be livecast is here on the ICAO website. (Ignore the odd description that says “closed,” which apparently only means that the livecast isn’t happening yet.)
ICAO’s rules generally call for open meetings, with some exceptions, but the ICAO press officer William Ralliant-Clark declined to answer questions about why the two meetings are not being livecast.
The Assembly plenary sessions will be open for media coverage and live-streamed.
However, because of “logistics requirements” there is no room for the public to attend Assembly meetings, which are held at ICAO headquarters in Montreal.
