The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has agreed by consensus to address the contribution aviation makes to climate change by 2016. However, the somewhat nebulous resolution, adopted in the closing hours of the ICAO's once-every-three-years general assembly in Montreal last week, apparently doesn't guarantee that any concrete measures will result, nor does it satisfy the concerns of environmental groups who largely viewed the measure as a delaying tactic. Nevertheless, aviation groups are ladling cautious praise on the resolution, which sets the next Triennial Assembly as the decision point for how the environment will be theoretically compensated for the conversion of jet fuel (avgas really isn't part of this picture) into the daily movement of millions of people and millions of pounds of freight around the world. Decisions made in Montreal three years from now won't take effect until 2020, assuming there is consensus at the next assembly. Although environmental groups found little to cheer about the resolution, aviation groups claimed a victory of sorts in that ICAO didn't adopt something like the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS).
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/recent-updates/business-military/icao-tackles-aviation-emissions