The International Business Aviation Council (IBAC) appealed to the International Civil Aviation Organization to use 2019 only as the baseline for its Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (Corsia) program, saying the original plans to use an average based on last year and this year would skew the threshold.

Corsia was to establish a baseline based on the average emissions between 2019 and 2020 that would serve as a basis for carbon-neutral targets and overall cost to operators. Business aircraft operators emitting more than 10,000 tonnes of CO2 annually in international flying are included in Corsia.

IBAC fears that the use of 2020 emissions would drastically lower the baseline at a much greater cost to operators. Increased costs of Corsia would only compound a challenging recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and result in an undeserved penalty on the sector, IBAC said.

“IBAC is concerned that a baseline average taken from 2019 and 2020 will reflect a highly anomalous circumstance inflicted on international aviation,” said IBAC director general Kurt Edwards. “Including exceptionally low 2020 emissions levels in the baseline will only divert critical resources from operators’ ability to take climate action and to contribute to the economic and sustainable development of regional and national economies around the world.”

Use of just 2019 emissions levels as the baseline is a simple solution, he said.