In fact, the two-year average was expressly designed to account for low-emission years —a lesson learned from an early attempt to set the baseline in 2010, which was thwarted by the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull, an Icelandic volcano which grounded flights in Europe.
事實上，取兩年平均值是特意為了考慮到低排放年份—這是從2010年早期基準值設定的嘗試中吸取的教訓，當時冰島埃亞菲亞德拉火山噴發，導致歐洲航班停飛。
Another complaint is that many of the offsets airlines can buy are ineffective. A report in November last year by the New- Climate Institute and the Stockholm Environment Institute, two think-tanks, found that 80% of CORSIA’s potential offsets are unlikely to have any additional benefit to the climate. Since then ICAO has, to its credit, limited the availability of junk offsets in the scheme, though green campaigners say it has not gone far enough.
另一個抱怨是，航空公司可購買的許多碳抵消都沒有產生效果。智庫新氣候機構和斯德哥爾摩環境研究所在去年11月發布了一份報告，報告顯示80%的CORSIA計劃中售賣的碳抵消不大可能會對氣候有任何益處。值得稱贊的是，從那時起，ICAO限制了該計劃中無用碳抵消的可購買性，不過環保人士表示，這還不夠。
Offsets’ bargain prices also suggest something is amiss. In 2018 the average price in the “voluntary market” (outside of mandated schemes) was $3 per tonne of CO2, about a sixth of the carbon price in the EU emissions-trading scheme. Last year EasyJet, a British low-cost carrier, announced plans to offset all its annual emissions. This will cost it a footling $32m. New offest projects created in anticipation of CORSIA boosted supply, which is expected to be four times higher than demand.
抵消公司的廉價價格也表明出了問題。2018年，“自愿市場”（強制性計劃之外）的平均價格為每噸二氧化碳3美元，約為歐盟排放交易計劃中碳價格的六分之一。去年，英國一家低成本航空公司EasyJet宣布了抵消其全年排放量的計劃。這將使該公司損失無足輕重的3200萬美元。預計CORSIA計劃中新設計的碳抵消計劃將增加供應，預計供應量將是需求量的4倍。
Industry executives claim that the original baseline would have imposed crippling costs. That seems overblown. Sparse coverage and the cheap offsets mean the cost to the industry is low. Assuming an offset price of $5 per tonne of CO2, Mr Rutherford estimates the change in the baseline will save airlines $350m a year. That is less than 1% of the forecast operating cashflow in 2021 for a panel of 37 listed airlines.
航空業高管聲稱，最初的基準會增加巨大的成本。這似乎言過其實了。稀疏的覆蓋范圍和廉價的抵消價格意味著航空業的成本很低。假設抵消價格為每噸二氧化碳5美元，盧瑟福估計，基準線的改變將每年為航空公司節省3.5億美元。這還不到37家上市航空公司預測的2021年運營現金流的1%。
Forgoing those savings would have been a small price to pay for burnishing airlines’ reputations as they seek billions in government bail-outs. Accusations of greenwashing will make calls to attach potentially much costlier green strings to the rescue packages grow louder.
在航空公司向政府尋求數十億美元紓困之際，放棄這些節省下來的開支，以微薄的代價來賺取好名聲，也不錯。“綠色環保”的指責將使要求在援助方案中附加昂貴的環保條件的呼聲越來越高。
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