By Craig Rucker
The Trump administration should pull America out of the ridiculous UN airline carbon-offset scheme known as “CORSIA” immediately.
The clock is ticking!
As CFACT heads to Brazil for COP 30, the biggest and most dangerous UN climate conference of the year, we call on the Trump administration to finish the job and break America free of every useless redistribution scheme created in the name of climate.
Forcing you to pay more to “offset” your airline’s emissions every time you fly internationally does absolutely nothing meaningful to lower the temperature of the Earth. It does plenty to line the pockets of those looking to cash in.
President Obama pushed the United States into the UN’s Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) following the 39th Assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in Montreal in 2016.
CORSIA seeks to address CO₂ emissions from international flights by requiring airlines to offset their emissions above a certain threshold by purchasing approved carbon credits.
The United States is currently participating in CORSIA’s “voluntary” phase through 2026. The scheme becomes “mandatory” in 2027.
CORSIA costs you every time you fly internationally. Experience teaches us that, if left unchecked, the costs of this aviation offset folly will grow and grow. Airlines even face a carbon-offset “shortage,” which will put upward pressure on fares.
China does not pay, as you might expect, despite transporting 59.3 million passengers in 2024.
We can expect the airline industry to have mixed opinions about exiting CORSIA.
Many industry insiders viewed forcing airlines to purchase carbon offsets as a lesser evil when they were faced with potentially far costlier schemes. CORSIA kept the airlines out of direct regulation under the Paris Climate Accord. CORSIA critics, both left and right, find themselves in rare agreement in viewing the scheme as a cover for corporate “greenwashing.”
However, President Trump initiated withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Climate Accord soon after taking office. That, coupled with increasing acceptance of the reality that offsets are not an effective method for reducing CO2 emissions, makes the case for exiting CORSIA an easy one to comprehend.
Ideally, President Trump would have included withdrawing from CORSIA in his January 20, 2025, executive order “Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements.” The Secretary of Transportation would have then notified the UN that America was exiting CORSIA before June 30, 2025.
Secretary Sean Duffy should inform the UN that America is pulling out of CORSIA now, before the scheme’s 2027 “mandatory” offsetting phase begins.
A legal argument can be made that America missed its chance to withdraw; however, CORSIA contains no international enforcement mechanism. If America’s air carriers cease reporting their emissions and purchasing offsets under the scheme, we will effectively be out.
The UN Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation is a costly, wasteful, ineffective climate scheme only a UN bureaucrat or climate profiteer could love.
CFACT advises President Trump to order Secretary Duffy and any and all appropriate officials to withdraw the United States from this UN airline carbon-offset scheme without further delay.
Read the UN’s CORSIA
offset resolution at CFACT.org
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