The United Nations’ aviation body, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), is increasingly dominated by the very commercial interests it was meant to regulate, a new report argues.
Independent think tank InfluenceMap evaluated the ICAO’s recent meetings and decision-making processes and concluded the organization is essentially “captured” by the airline industry and other corporations connected to commercial air travel, especially as it concerns climate change initiatives and the regulation of conventional jet fuel.
The report comes as the ICAO’s assembly, representing 193 member nations, prepares to meet in Montreal. The session, which runs from September 23 to October 3, will set the direction of international civil air transportation regulation for the next three years.
According to InfluenceMap’s study, the ICAO is increasingly used as a conduit by powerful trade groups like the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to discourage and defeat proposed taxes on the industry. In April, for instance, the ICAO advised its member states to lobby against plans put forward by other U.N. bodies to tax jet fuel and channel the proceeds to climate-related projects in the developing world.
The ICAO’s own carbon offset scheme, known as CORSIA, has been criticized as unambitious and set up to deliver wins on paper that do not necessarily translate to an actual reduction in emissions.
Question of Transparency
The report also dinged the ICAO’s Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP), which last met in February, for an alleged lack of transparency.
Analysts noted that CAEP meetings are closed to the public and the media, and that delegates must sign nondisclosure agreements. Additionally, submissions from participating organizations are not publicly released.
These policies contrast with transparency measures adopted by groups like the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which do release position papers and submissions.
InfluenceMap also pointed out that industry representatives, including employees of Boeing, Airbus, ExxonMobil, and Chevron, outnumbered environmental experts 14 to 1 at the CAEP’s February meeting. A similar imbalance—10 to 1 in favor of industry groups—was reported at ICAO’s last major environmental conference in 2022.
In response to InfluenceMap’s report, an ICAO spokesperson told The Guardian that the organization is committed to increasing transparency as part of a “cultural transformation” that started three years ago.
“The ICAO assembly next week will be reviewing progress and determining the next steps,” the representative said. “The resolutions passed by the assembly will also support the implementation of ICAO’s long-term strategic plan for 2050, which envisions zero fatalities and net-zero carbon emissions. The review of the outcomes and the resulting decisions by the ICAO council and assembly are fully open and broadcast to all.”
ICAO delegates could weigh in on other contentious aviation-related issues next week, including a proposal to raise the mandatory retirement age for commercial airline pilots from 65 to 67. President Donald Trump’s pick to represent the U.S. at the ICAO, former Delta Air Lines pilot Jeffrey Anderson, is believed by some critics, including the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), to be supportive of the change.
