The United Arab Emirates foreign minister, Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, shakes hands with his opposite number in Cuba, Bruno Rodríguez, after raising the UAE flag at the opening of the Emirati embassy in Havana on Oct. 5, 2015. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, Oct 6 2015 (IPS)

Cuba and the United Arab Emirates agreed to strengthen diplomatic ties and bilateral cooperation during an official visit to this Caribbean island nation by the UAE minister of foreign affairs, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

During his 24-hour stay, Al Nahyan met on Monday Oct. 5 with Cuban authorities, signed two agreements, and inaugurated his country’s embassy in Havana, which he said was a clear sign of the consolidation of the ties established by the two countries in March 2002.

“I am sure that the next few years will witness the prosperity of our ties,” he added during his official meeting with his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodríguez, with whom he signed an agreement on air services “between and beyond our territories” which will facilitate the expansion of opportunities for international air transport.

In the meeting, Rodríguez reaffirmed his government’s support for Arab peoples in their struggle to maintain their independence and territorial integrity.

According to official sources, the two foreign ministers concurred that the opening of the UAE embassy is an important step forward in bilateral ties and will permit closer follow-up of questions of mutual interest.

Al Nahyan also met with the first vice president of the councils of state and ministers, Miguel Díaz Canel. The two officials confirmed the good state of bilateral ties and the possibilities for cooperation on the economic, trade and financial fronts, Cuba’s prime-time TV newscast reported.

The foreign ministers of Cuba and the United Arab Emirates, Bruno Rodríguez (left) and Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, during the Oct. 5, 2015 agreement-signing ceremony in Cuba’s ministry of foreign affairs in Havana. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Cuba’s minister of foreign trade and investment, Rodrigo Malmierca, signed a credit agreement with the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, to finance a solar energy farm that will generate 10 MW of electricity.

Al Nahyan first visited Havana on Oct. 1-2, 2009 in response to an official invitation from minister Rodríguez. On that occasion they signed two agreements, one on economic, trade and technical cooperation, and another between the two foreign ministries.

“We have great confidence in Cuba’s leaders and in our capacity to carry out these kinds of projects,” Al Nahyan told the local media on that occasion.

United Arab Emirates, a federation made up of seven emirates – Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm al-Quwain – established diplomatic relations with Cuba in March 2002, in an accord signed in Cairo.

The decision to open an embassy in the Cuban capital was reached in a June 2014 cabinet meeting presided over by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the UAE vice president and prime minister, and the ruler of Dubai.

In late February 2015, Al Maktoum received the letters of credentials for the new ambassador of Cuba in the UAE, Enrique Enríquez, during a ceremony in the Al Mushrif Palace in the Emirati capital.

The United Arab Emirates foreign minister, Abdullah bin Zayed al Nayhan, unveils a plaque commemorating the official opening in Havana of the new UAE embassy, together with his opposite number in Cuba, Bruno Rodríguez. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Later, UAE Assistant Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Ahmed al Jarman and Enríquez discussed the state of bilateral relations and agreed to take immediate concrete steps to expand and strengthen ties in different areas.

Enríquez also met with Cubans living in Abu Dhabi with a view to bolstering relations between them and their home country. They agreed on periodic future gatherings.

In May 2014, the UAE and Cuba signed an open skies agreement to allow the airlines of both countries to operate in each other’s territories, as well as opening the door to new plans for flights between the two countries, the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) reported.

The accord formed part of a strategy to boost trade with other countries, said Saif Mohammed al Suwaidi, director general of the GCAA, who headed a delegation of officials and representatives of national airlines during a two-day visit to Cuba.

The UAE signed similar agreements with other Latin American countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico, as part of its effort at closer relations with this region, which is of growing interest to the Gulf country.

Talks have also been announced between the UAE and Russia to build a giant airport in Cuba, which would serve as an international airport hub for Latin America, the Abu Dhabi-based National newspaper reported in February.

The proposal is being discussed by the Russian government and the Abu Dhabi state investment fund Mubadala, mandated to diversify the emirate’s economy.

In 2013 and 2014, UAE was named the world’s largest official development aid donor in a report released by the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In 2013, the Gulf nation provided five billion dollars in ODA to other countries.

Last year, according to OECD data, the only Gulf country to have a Ministry of International Cooperation and Development spent 1.34 percent of their gross domestic product in development cooperation.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

The global drawdown in the use of leaded fuel has resulted in benefits of some 2.5 trillion dollars a year. Credit: Bigstock

By Carey L. Biron
WASHINGTON, Apr 22 2014 (IPS)

Consumer advocates, public health workers and environmental groups here are calling on the federal government to take a formal step towards regulating the use of lead in aviation gasoline, despite a failure to do so for nearly two decades.

The United States is one of the few countries that continue to allow the use of lead in aviation gasoline, known as “avgas” and used in more than 150,000 small planes and helicopters at around 20,000 U.S. airports. Avgas is now the country’s largest source of lead in air emissions, with significant, universally acknowledged ramifications for the natural environment and, particularly, for human health."The EPA has the evidence it needs, the science is clear, so we really feel that there’s no need to wait any longer.” -- Kathy Attar

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the lead regulator on such issues, ordered the removal of lead from the gasoline used in motor vehicles a decade and a half ago. Yet despite what proponents of new regulations say are clear scientific findings and a straightforward conversion process, the EPA has yet to weigh in on the matter.

“We already know there’s no safe threshold for lead exposure, and we also know that lead is toxic and a possible carcinogen even at low levels, leading to brain damage and learning disabilities,” Kathy Attar, toxics programme manager with Physicians for Social Responsibility, a consumer protection group, told IPS.

“These effects are particularly dangerous for children. The EPA has the evidence it needs, the science is clear, so we really feel that there’s no need to wait any longer.”

Few other countries continue to use leaded avgas, though Algeria, Iraq and Yemen did still do so as of late last year. The United States is not only the world’s most prominent laggard in this regard, but also by far avgas’s largest user.

Smaller aircraft tend to fly much lower to the ground than jet airliners, and hence their emissions can have a much more pronounced, immediate effect on human health (jet fuel is already lead-free). Further, lead stays in the environment for a long time, leading to a  “legacy lead” already left over from decades’ of use of leaded gasoline and paint.

Meanwhile, the global drawdown in the use of leaded fuel has resulted in benefits of some 2.5 trillion dollars a year, according to United Nations estimates from 2011. That study found that the economic benefits of this phase-out, primarily in terms of public health, outweighed the costs by 10 times.

New evidence

Physicians for Social Responsibility is one of three advocacy groups now calling on the EPA to make what is known as an endangerment finding over the lead in aviation gas. This initial step would recognise that avgas lead causes pollution and that this pollution poses a threat to human health.

Such a finding would constitute a necessary first step towards eventually creating a new regulation on the issue. Yet some say that past EPA determinations on these issues already satisfies the requirements for a formal endangerment determination.

“The only showing required for a finding of endangerment is that lead emissions from aircraft engines fuelled by leaded aviation gasoline cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare,” the new petition, filed with the EPA on Monday, states.

“In this case, both prongs of that test have been met … There is no need for further study. EPA has all of the evidence it needs to make an endangerment finding.”

The EPA was unable to comment for this story by deadline.

Another green group, Friends of the Earth U.S., has pushed this line with the EPA in the past, and been turned down. Indeed, the current petition is actually a request for reconsideration of a similar petition filed with the regulator in 2006, while two years ago a court refused to force the agency to take further action.

In 2010, the EPA did take initial steps to start drafting a rule, but that didn’t include the endangerment finding and the agency has since stated that it needs to undertake more analysis. In mid-2012 it responded to the original Friends of the Earth petition, however, and has said it could decide on future action by the end of 2015.

It didn’t commit to that date, however. And advocates say new evidence has emerged that wasn’t taken into account during the legal proceedings and past agency decisions.

“We’ve seen the EPA issue the results of a lead-monitoring study at 17 airports, including findings of lead levels higher than federal standards,” Marcie Keever, legal director at Friends of the Earth, which took part in Monday’s petition, told IPS.

“In addition, in 2011 a study from Duke University reported on the severe negative impacts of lead from aircraft, finding elevated levels of lead in the blood of those living within 500 meters of airports.”

The EPA’s powers have become intensely politicised in recent years, due both to the agency’s positioning as the prime regulator on greenhouse gas emissions and the perception that its rules often increase companies’ operating costs.

Keever acknowledges that the agency needs to be careful about its rationale for action, but also suggests that the issues surrounding leaded avgas are relatively straightforward.

“Because of the pressures the EPA faces whenever it moves forward with regulation, they want to be very thorough,” she says. “But we think this issue is much easier than, for instance, greenhouse gases – the science is extremely clear.”

Alternatives available

In the past, members of Congress have pushed the EPA to go slow on the avgas issue. Particularly vocal have been lawmakers from the large northern state of Alaska, where small aircraft are especially important for reaching otherwise inaccessible communities.

“While we understand and share your desire to remove lead from avgas … we also need to ensure the EPA does not ban lead used in avgas until we have a safe, viable, readily available, and cost-efficient alternative,” 27 U.S. senators wrote to the EPA in 2011.

Now that situation could be changing. In December, Shell became the first major oil company to unveil a “lead-free alternative” avgas, and last year the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration formally noted that such alternatives exist.

Further, the economic burdens involved in such a transition could be relatively low. Currently, unleaded gasoline used in automobiles is actually cheaper than leaded avgas.

And while some new infrastructure would be required at airports, most aircraft would require no updating whatsoever. According to Friends of the Earth, some 75 percent of the current U.S. fleet could start using unleaded fuel with no retrofitting whatsoever.

A contentious global agreement on how to limit greenhouse gas emissions from the global airline industry will be at the top of the agenda over the next two weeks at an international summit, potentially solidifying details that have yet to emerge after more than a decade and a half of talks.

A C-141 Starlifter leaves a contrail over Antarctica. Credit: public domain

While civil society and the aviation industry have often been far apart in their views on the optimal strength and framework for the new regulations, prominent voices on both sides are now urging governments to set a clear timetable at talks that began Tuesday in Montreal.

Some say the negotiations, under the 191-member International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), a U.N. body, will offer a last, best opportunity to cut back on the sector’s globally significant greenhouse emissions while offering a fillip to broader multilateral efforts at combating climate change. Others are warning that failure to reach an agreement at the summit, which runs through Oct. 4, could result in an international trade war.

“The need for immediate reductions has never been greater, and ICAO delegates have a great chance to seek rapid emissions reductions,” Brad Schallert, programme officer for climate change at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a conservation and advocacy group, told IPS from sidelines of the talks. “Yet currently, both NGOs and the industry are hoping for stronger language than what is currently in the draft agreement.”

The draft in question, which was unveiled in early September, came out of a 10-month process convened to try to move along the broader negotiations.

In the aftermath of the passage of the Kyoto Protocol, a decade and a half ago, the United Nations mandated ICAO to evolve a mechanism by which to cut down the aviation sector’s greenhouse gas emissions. Since that time, the talks have progressed slowly when they’ve progressed at all.

In January 2012, however, the European Union put in place a far-reaching agreement to require both inbound and outbound airplanes to purchase “carbon credits” to offset their emissions. That led to virulent pushback from certain countries – led by the United States but including developing countries warning that their nascent but booming airline industries shouldn’t be forced to pay for decades’ of high pollution levels coming from developed countries.

The response temporarily halted the European Union’s scheme, though failure to come to an agreement at the current ICAO could lead it to reinstate the plan. Several officials have recently warned that doing so could lead to a trade war.

Vague timeframe

Given both the type of fuel it burns and the altitude at which its planes operate, in addition to its massive growth in recent decades, the airline industry is one of the single largest contributors of greenhouse gases. Analysts suggest that if it were a country, the industry would be the seventh-largest global polluter.

Currently those emissions contribute between 2 and 3 percent of total greenhouse gases. Yet there is broad agreement that these levels are set to increase dramatically in coming years.

In an attempt to prod the talks along and to deal with the sudden existence of the E.U. regional scheme, in November a high-level committee was tasked with formulating a compromise agreement. This committee included strong representation from the countries sceptical of the E.U. plan.

Yet to the frustration of both environmentalists and many within the airline industry, the draft states only that it “decides to develop” a global market-based mechanism to limit aviation emissions.

“The view is that it’s problematic that the agreement says it will develop, not that it will adopt, a global mechanism – the idea that there will simply be a recommendation isn’t good enough for either the NGOs or the industry,” Schallert says.

“Both the airlines and the manufacturers work on 30- to 40-year timescales, so they need signals that give them certainty. For both groups, the benefits of global measures are that they result in fewer market distortions.”

Further, a relatively speeded-up timetable is important for the industry, which is labouring under its own self-imposed schedule for cleaning up the sector.

In a landmark resolution in 2010, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) – representing 84 percent of all air traffic – agreed to be “carbon neutral” by 2020. This included a decision to impose an annual fuel-efficiency improvement of 1.5 percent until 2020 and a 50 percent reduction in emissions (under 2005 levels) by 2050.

At an annual meeting in June, IATA members reiterated these goals while also calling on governments to agree to the creation of a single global mechanism to limit aviation-related emissions.

“The ICAO Assembly is a real opportunity to demonstrate progress on tackling aviation CO2 emissions,” Paul Steele, executive director of the industry-wide Air Transport Action Group (ATAG), said last week, speaking on behalf of the industry.

“Governments now need to play their part by agreeing a package of actions, including a global market-based measure, to help reduce emissions even further … and show climate change leadership.”

E.U. motivator

Regardless of what exact timeframe is decided upon in Montreal – in the event that any agreement is arrived at – another and more controversial issue remains: what, if anything, to do until a global mechanism goes into effect. It is here that the European Union’s scheme remains both a motivator and an obstacle for ICAO negotiators.

“We are supportive of provisions in the draft resolution that will go before the ICAO Assembly for ICAO to do the work on [a global market-based] scheme,” Nancy Young, vice-president of environmental affairs for Airlines For America, a U.S.-based association, told IPS.

“In the meantime, we oppose the application of country-based or regional market-based measures to international aviation without the consent of the country of an airline’s registry.”

Yet under new language in the ICAO draft agreement, states would indeed be able to institute emissions regulations on flights to or from other countries “prior to the implementation of a global … scheme”. In a turnaround, however, the E.U. permits would cover emissions only within E.U. airspace, rather than applying to the entire flight as initially required.

Initial reports suggest that the European negotiators are amendable to such a change, though any new language would need approval from the European Parliament.

“If that is the case, then we have reason for optimism that we’re moving away from the path toward confrontation,” Steve Brown, chief operating officer at the National Business Aviation Association, told IPS in a statement, “and instead may be headed toward a new era of global cooperation on climate change.”