The European Union has named Air China as one of eight Chinese airlines that could face fines and total exclusion from Europe for failing to submit emissions data for EU carbon tax collection, reports the New York Times reports.
China, India, the United States and others say the European Union has no right to charge for emissions on routes that are mostly outside European airspace.
The European Commission (EC) said Air China and Air India were among 10 airlines facing the prospect of fines and exclusion from airports in the EU for refusing to comply with its rules to tax carbon emissions.
The commission has announced that the Chinese carriers could be fined US$3 million. Several countries, including the US and Japan, protested the new emissions system.
China and India oppose the plan even as currently applied to intra-Europe flights. The EC also named two Indian airlines facing fines.
So far the emissions rules apply only to flights within Europe, and European carriers and most non-European airlines have complied. Still hotly debated, though, is the planned expansion of the system next January to include international flights in and out of Europe.
The scheme, called the Emissions Trading System, already covers 11,000 EU factories and power plants. Major polluters need to show each year that they have acquired a sufficient number of permits, representing a ton of CO2 to compensate for their greenhouse gas emissions.
Permits go for EUR3.65 (US$4.70) per ton in the international trading market that has emerged.
Each EU state supervises a certain number of airlines. In the case of the Chinese and Indian carriers, the EC must rely mainly on Britain, France and Germany to issue further warnings and impose fines.
Airbus, which until recently faced a Chinese boycott, supports the Chinese resistance to the tax. Its chief executive Fabrice Bregier wrote that the company had been "very active" in preventing application of the tax to international flights.
"I hope we at Airbus have been able to clearly demonstrate our strong support to Chinese aviation," he wrote.
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