Outcome of ICAO High Level Meeting announced

In a 9 October 2009 news release from Montreal, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) announced the outcome of its High Level Meeting on International Aviation and Climate Change (see previous post). The meeting resulted in a Declaration, the final draft of which is available for download from the ICAO website.

The references to "93% of commercial air traffic" and "the nations of the world that represent the vast majority of international civil aviation traffic have spoken" in the news release seemed to imply that the usual ICAO consensus between member states was not reached but apparently this was not the case. It seems that some member states, however, were carrying over into their positions at ICAO the positions they currently hold in the wider climate change negotiations.

On 8 October 2009 the Director General of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), Giovanni Bisignani, made some "very blunt" remarks to the meeting.

On 10 October 2009 the IATA Director General made some further remarks on the outcome of the ICAO meeting.

The various key international aviation industry organisations (IATA, ACI, CANSO and ICCAIA) had presented a united position to the meeting in a working paper. I am not aware of any such significant statements from other emissions-generating industry sectors.