An international group of 40 top economists, including 4 Nobel Prize winners and World Wildlife Fund board member Dr. Robert Litterman, has reached out to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) urging it to reflect the social cost of carbon as it develops a global market-based mechanism to address emissions from aviation.
Unregulated carbon emissions from the aviation sector are the fastest growing source of the greenhouse gas emissions that are contributing to global climate change.
After 16 years of negotiations, ICAO has agreed to develop a market solution to reduce those emissions beginning in 2016 and is now beginning to design how that mechanism will work.
In part, the open letter states:
“The aviation industry itself should champion appropriate global incentives to cut emissions as soon as possible. Doing so will not only help reduce its contribution to the climate crisis; developing a model global pricing mechanism will also provide an example of how governments can institute similar measures to obligate other sectors to reduce emissions faster.”
Continue reading the full text of the letter here.
