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an 17, p. 13

National airline Garuda Indonesia said that they were not willing to participate in the European Union’s emissions trading scheme (ETS), which charges airlines for greenhouse gases produced by their jets flying to and from the EU, a senior official said.

“We actually do not want to pay the ETS because the consequences would be that we would raise our ticket prices,” Garuda Indonesia finance director Elisa Lumbantoruan told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Your comments:

I personally and sincerely believe that our flag carrier, the Garuda Indonesia, will be able to resolve this situation amicably, the way we professionally resolved the Garuda flight ban to Europe a few years ago.

The basic intention of the EU on its carbon-tax scheme is indeed noble, green economics-wise. Yet this will also create a ticket price increase, though only on the route between Dubai and Amsterdam or any other EU flight destination.

The European Union’s emissions trading scheme (ETS), though it has not been totally accepted by aviation-rich countries, would nevertheless be adopted by other nations too, as its aim is indeed universal: reducing global warming emissions.

The worldwide adoption of this policy will surely increase ticket prices among airliners and create the need for lower emissions. This will dictate that all aircraft engine manufacturers should improve and/or modify their product to accommodate the ruling for cleaner aircraft power-plants.

With the Indonesian archipelago being almost as large as the EU, I personally wonder if we were to plant more trees in Indonesia, if that would cover the damage compensation our flag carrier could possibly be hit with as part of this ETS punishment.

Why wait? Let’s just start planting trees. It would be beneficial to all mankind to take the place of an ETS punishment our flag carrier might face, for the still unavoidable aircraft engine exhaust-gases.

It is all well and good if that could somehow be accepted as it won’t do any harm.

Moeljono