Ricci proposes 70% reinvestment requirement for aviation and maritime ETS revenues

Member states would have to reinvest at least 70% of the ETS auction revenues generated by aviation and maritime transport in decarbonising those sectors, under amendments proposed by Matteo Ricci, the European Parliament transport committee’s rapporteur for opinion on the ETS review.

The draft opinion, dated the 30^th of September, would apply the requirement separately to aviation and shipping. Member states would report revenues and expenditure by sector, with the Commission publishing an annual scoreboard showing whether each country meets the threshold.

Ricci also proposes increasing the general share of auction revenues earmarked for decarbonising ETS sectors from 50% to 75%, while explicitly including a shift towards rail among the eligible uses.

The proposals form part of a wider attempt to give transport operators greater certainty over access to funding, sustainable fuels, and alternative propulsion technologies. The text remains a draft opinion for the Transport and Tourism Committee, which is contributing to the work of the lead Environment, Climate and Food Safety Committee.

For shipping, Ricci would increase the proposed Sustainable Maritime Alternative Propulsion mechanism from 110 million to 200 million allowances. Support would prioritise EU-produced fuels, wind propulsion, and electrification, with at least 20% reserved for smaller shipping companies, short-sea operators, ferries, and island connections.

Eligible fuels could be bunkered in EU ports or in third-country ports participating in green shipping corridors with EU ports. Where demand exceeds the available support, priority would go to the fuels and technologies delivering the greatest climate benefit. Unused allowances would remain available until 2040.

For aviation, the draft would reserve up to 200 million additional allowances for eligible sustainable fuels through 2040, compared with the Commission’s proposed 110 million. This would be additional to the existing 20 million allowances available until 2030.

At least 15% of the Innovation Fund’s allowances would be dedicated to aviation and maritime demonstration and first-of-a-kind projects, including renewable fuels, hydrogen and electric propulsion, and associated airport and port infrastructure. Dedicated bidding windows would allow transport projects to seek support separately from industrial installations.

The draft also proposes bringing all flights arriving at or departing from EU airports within the ETS from 2033, unless the Commission establishes by 30 June 2032 that the international aviation offsetting scheme, CORSIA, meets specified conditions.

These would include participation representing at least 70% of international civil aviation emissions, measured using revenue tonne-kilometres, corresponding adjustments for eligible offsets under the Paris Agreement, and a weighted average offset cost over the preceding three years equivalent to at least 60% of the average EU allowance price.

For shipping, Ricci proposes annual monitoring of carbon leakage and a gradual introduction of allowance-surrender obligations for currently exempt island, outermost-region, and public-service routes between 2034 and 2040.

Bloss seeks electrification-first ETS funding, reduced biofuel support, and carbon pricing for contrails

Green MEP Michael Bloss has proposed giving electrification priority in EU Emissions Trading System funding, removing dedicated maritime biofuel support, and requiring airlines to surrender allowances for contrail warming from 2029.

The amendments, dated the 6th of October, would establish technology-specific funding priorities across industrial and transport decarbonisation. They also seek broader ETS coverage for international aviation and shipping. The proposals remain amendments to the review before the European Parliament’s Environment, Climate and Food Safety Committee.

An explicit “electrification first” principle would make direct electrification the reference pathway for industrial funding wherever it is technically feasible using commercially available or near-commercial technologies. Hydrogen-based routes and carbon capture, utilisation, and storage would receive support only where electrification is demonstrated to be technically infeasible or not cost-effective within the relevant investment period.

The principle would govern the proposed Industrial Decarbonisation Bank, renamed the “Industrial Electrification and Decarbonisation Bank”, and industrial support under the Modernisation Fund. Operators submitting decarbonisation investment plans under the free-allocation provisions would also have to demonstrate that they had applied it.

For transport, Bloss proposes concentrating support on renewable fuels of non-biological origin and electric or zero-emission propulsion, while reducing or removing dedicated support for biofuels.

In shipping, he would delete the provision covering 55% of the remaining price difference between conventional maritime fuels and biogas or advanced biofuels. His justification argues that funding should target technologies with greater long-term decarbonisation potential, including electrification, wind propulsion, renewable e-methanol, e-ammonia, and renewable hydrogen.

Bloss seeks to reserve at least 80% of maritime support allowances for renewable fuels of non-biological origin and zero-emission propulsion. Coverage of the remaining price difference for renewable fuels would nevertheless fall from the Commission’s proposed 90% to 60%, while support for eligible low-carbon hydrogen and low-carbon fuels would fall from 80% to 30%.

The proposed 90% coverage of additional costs for zero-emission propulsion would remain, with at least 10 million allowances earmarked for that purpose.

For aviation, at least 80% of the allowances reserved under the fuel-support mechanisms would go towards renewable fuels of non-biological origin and electric or hybrid aircraft. At least one million allowances would be reserved specifically for electric and hybrid aviation.

Support for advanced aviation biofuels would fall from 50% to 30% of the remaining price difference with fossil kerosene. Fuels produced from palm oil mill effluent, intermediate crops, or crops grown on severely degraded land would be excluded from that category of support.

Bloss also proposes requiring aircraft operators to surrender allowances for contrail warming from the 1st of January 2029. The obligation would be additional to existing emissions requirements, with contrail impacts calculated from reported and verified data and expressed in carbon dioxide equivalent using a 100-year global warming potential.

Incentives for contrail avoidance would place greater weight on verified reductions in warming, rather than simply incorporating forecasting models into flight-planning tools. Operators could submit avoidance plans in advance, with allowances reserved following Commission approval and allocated once the avoided impacts are verified.

The amendments also seek ETS coverage for all flights departing from the European Economic Area. Any subsequent restriction would require stronger safeguards, including a finding that the international aviation offsetting scheme, CORSIA, has ambition at least equivalent to the EU framework for reducing aviation emissions and contrail impacts.

For shipping, Bloss seeks to include large offshore ships from the 1st of January 2027 and extend coverage to ships between 400 and 5,000 gross tonnage from the 1st of January 2029.

EU transport emissions rise 2% as rail freight declines

EU transport greenhouse gas emissions increased by 2% in 2024, while emissions across the economy fell by 1.8%, according to the European Commission’s 2026 edition of EU Transport in Figures.

Transport emissions reached 1,061.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, compared with 1,040.8 million tonnes in 2023. The figures include international aviation and maritime bunkers and exclude land use and forestry.

Aviation recorded the largest percentage increase among the principal transport modes, with emissions rising by 5.4% to 143.3 million tonnes. Maritime emissions increased by 3.9% to 144.5 million tonnes, while road transport emissions rose by 1.2% to 767 million tonnes.

Road transport remained responsible for 72.2% of transport emissions.

Passenger transport activity also increased across the main modes. Rail activity rose by 6.1% to 463.8 billion passenger-kilometres, while intra-EU aviation grew by 8.5% to 631.3 billion passenger-kilometres.

Bus and coach activity increased by 5.7%, and tram and metro activity by 6.7%. Passenger-car activity grew by only 0.3%, although cars continued to account for 70.3% of motorised passenger transport.

Freight figures show a different pattern. Rail freight declined by 1.5% to 389.9 billion tonne-kilometres, while road freight increased by 0.7% to 1,820.5 billion tonne-kilometres. Intra-EU maritime freight fell by 4.1%, contributing to a 0.8% reduction in overall freight activity.

The passenger and freight activity figures exclude air and sea transport between the EU and the rest of the world, giving them a different geographical scope from the emissions figures.

The pocketbook also records an increase in the market share of zero-emission cars. Battery-electric and hydrogen vehicles accounted for 17.3% of new EU car registrations in 2025, up from 13.5% in 2024, an increase of 3.8 percentage points.

Total new car registrations rose by 1.7% over the same period. The 2025 registration figures remain provisional.

Fuel associations seek binding renewable transport targets beyond 2030

The EU should retain binding renewable energy targets and fuel-supplier obligations for transport beyond 2030, FuelsEurope and 12 other energy and renewable fuel associations have told the European Commission.

In a joint letter on the future Renewable Energy Directive framework, the associations argue that dedicated transport obligations are needed to provide long-term demand certainty for investment in European renewable fuel production.

They warn that relying predominantly on carbon pricing under ETS1 and ETS2 would not provide an equivalent investment signal. Carbon prices alone, they argue, cannot give producers sufficient certainty over the future market for renewable fuels.

The organisations identify a particular gap for road transport, which lacks a post-2030 framework comparable to the long-term fuel requirements applying to aviation and shipping. They favour continued transport-specific obligations focused on road and rail.

The letter cites a renewable energy share of 11.2% in transport in 2024. Under the current directive, member states must achieve either a 29% renewable energy share in transport or a 14.5% reduction in the greenhouse gas intensity of transport fuels and energy by 2030.

The associations support simplification and continued flexibility for member states, but argue that reform should preserve binding transport targets and supplier obligations.

They link the case for a longer-term framework to reducing petroleum imports, strengthening energy security, and supporting European production capacity. Without continued demand obligations, they warn, investment in renewable fuels risks losing the policy certainty needed to proceed.