经济学人下载:航空公司与气候(2)

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.
事实上，取两年平均值是特意为了考虑到低排放年份—这是从2010年早期基准值设定的尝试中吸取的教训，当时冰岛埃亚菲亚德拉火山喷发，导致欧洲航班停飞。

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.
另一个抱怨是，航空公司可购买的许多碳抵消都没有产生效果。智库新气候机构和斯德哥尔摩环境研究所在去年11月发布了一份报告，报告显示80%的CORSIA计划中售卖的碳抵消不大可能会对气候有任何益处。值得称赞的是，从那时起，ICAO限制了该计划中无用碳抵消的可购买性，不过环保人士表示，这还不够。

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.
抵消公司的廉价价格也表明出了问题。2018年，“自愿市场”（强制性计划之外）的平均价格为每吨二氧化碳3美元，约为欧盟排放交易计划中碳价格的六分之一。去年，英国一家低成本航空公司EasyJet宣布了抵消其全年排放量的计划。这将使该公司损失无足轻重的3200万美元。预计CORSIA计划中新设计的碳抵消计划将增加供应，预计供应量将是需求量的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.
航空业高管声称，最初的基准会增加巨大的成本。这似乎言过其实了。稀疏的覆盖范围和廉价的抵消价格意味着航空业的成本很低。假设抵消价格为每吨二氧化碳5美元，卢瑟福估计，基准线的改变将每年为航空公司节省3.5亿美元。这还不到37家上市航空公司预测的2021年运营现金流的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.
在航空公司向政府寻求数十亿美元纾困之际，放弃这些节省下来的开支，以微薄的代价来赚取好名声，也不错。“绿色环保”的指责将使要求在援助方案中附加昂贵的环保条件的呼声越来越高。