International cooperation and capacity building activities are a key element in achieving a sustainable aviation sector within Europe and worldwide.
Several EU initiatives, managed by EASA on behalf of the European Commission, have been launched in different regions with the objective to support States in aviation environmental protection activities. The two main on-going CORSIA capacity building initiatives include the €4 million EU-South East Asia ‘Cooperation on Mitigating Climate Change impact from Civil Aviation’ project launched in 2019, and the €5 million ‘Capacity Building Project for CO2 Emissions Mitigation in the African and Caribbean Region’ launched in 2020. Various EU Aviation Partnership Projects (APPs) covering the regions of Latin America, South Asia, and North Asia also include environmental components (
).The overall objective of these projects is to enhance the partnership between the EU and partner States in the areas of civil aviation environmental protection and climate change, and to achieve long-lasting results beyond the duration of the projects. The specific aims of the CORSIA projects are to support policy dialogues with partner States on mitigating GHG emissions from civil aviation and to help enable partner States to implement CORSIA in line with the agreed international schedule. This includes consideration of joining the voluntary offsetting phase that started in 2021 at the earliest possible time. The results from these past and ongoing international cooperation and capacity building activities have been positive in achieving the above objectives.
In order to facilitate coordination between European international cooperation projects that are initiated by the EU, EU Member States, industry and NGOs, an Aviation Environmental Projects Coordination Group (AEPCG) was established by EASA in 2020.
