- Email: [email protected]
A geopolitics of (im)mobility?
Political Geography 36 (2013) A1–A3
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Political Geography journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/polgeo
Guest Editorial
A geopolitics of (im)mobility?
Keywords: Mobilities Transport Aviation Geopolitics EU-ETS
On 12th November 2012, aviation observers cautiously heaved a sigh of relief when European Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard announced that the European Union (EU) would ‘stop the clock’ on its plans to include aviation in the bloc’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). The proposal had been at the center of much controversy since it was first mooted in 2003, not just because of its cost implications on aircraft operators, but also due to its geopolitical ramifications. Under the ETS, the EU would reserve the right to require all carriers, including foreign ones, operating within, to or from its territories to surrender matching amounts of carbon credits annually, to account for their greenhouse gas emissions on flights involving EU airports. With the first of such payments coming due in April 2013, a myriad of countriesdfrom China to Qatardhad put up nothing short of a vehement protest in the time leading up to the present suspension. This editorial argues that a geopolitics of (im)mobility is (re)emerging at the global scale. While, thanks to rapid technological innovation and increasingly liberalized markets, it would appear that civil aviation is making healthy strides in its growth, nation-states are paradoxically grappling with (and conjuring) new headwinds that would hamper the ability (of some) to traverse across the globe freely. The EU-ETS is a case in point not simply because it represents a form of overt restraint on aerial activities, but more so because it seeks to reconfigure the rules of global mobility, as the same now needs to be renegotiateddunder the ambit of climate change and environmental protectiondand hammered out between disparate states. In a way, the EU-ETS, as a contested instrument to advance European interests, corroborates Shaw and Sidaway’s (2010) view that transport and travel concerns are intimately intertwined with geopolitical thinking and practices. This time, however, the (geo)politicization of aviation does not simply entail a methodological revamp of social life, but a struggle over movement itself, striking at the very heart of how, and whether, aeromobilities can take flight. Aviation under the EU-ETS In 2005, the EU-ETS was launched as the world’s first international ‘cap-and-trade’ (i.e. involving the limitation and trading of 0962-6298/$ – see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2012.12.007
greenhouse gas emission allowances) scheme to transform Europe ‘into a highly energy-efficient, low carbon economy’ (European Commission, 2012). In large part owing to this exemplary effort, the EU has touted itselfdnot Americadas the ‘driving force’ and leader in the world’s ecological affairs. In November 2008, the EU took further steps to act on its pledge to phase in new rounds of greenhouse gas reductions at the end of the decade, ahead of imminent post-Rio summits. Arguing that the limitation of emissions from aviation was an ‘essential contribution’ in the global fight against climate change, the EU vowed ‘to take the lead in the negotiation of an ambitious international agreement that [would] achieve the objective of limiting the global temperature increase to 2 C’, while ensuring that such a global agreement would include ‘measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from aviation’ (EURLex, 2009). Subsequent arbitrations on how far, and whose, aerial activities were to be curbed would instigate widespread opposition from the world, even as they served as a (fleeting) demonstration of Europe’s geopolitical leadership and supranational influence. Notwithstanding the transnational nature of aviation, the EU had mandated that, starting from 2012, a 3 percent reduction in total greenhouse gas emissions against 2004–2006 levels would be imposed on all flights taking off or landing in EU aerodromes, based on their entire route, rather than on operations within European airspace. Operators who would not comply, or could not submit the correct number of allowances at the end of each year, would face hefty fines, or risk having their aircraft banned or impounded at European airports. Although careful to couch the new laws within the limits of European jurisdiction, the EU’s attempt to hijack international aeromobilitiesdessentially the arteries of a US-led globality (Aaltola, 2005)dto beef up its own geopolitical profile, and to tacitly benefit manufacturers and operators of its much more advanced fleet, was treated as an arrogant move by many. Starting with the US, the Air Transport Association and two of its members, American and United Airlines, promptly filed a lawsuit against the EU for breaching several international agreements, including the Chicago Convention of 1944 and the EU-US air transport agreement. When
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Guest Editorial / Political Geography 36 (2013) A1–A3
the European Court of Justice later overrode this motion and ruled in late 2011 that the EU-ETS was legal, the American Senate passed a bill (S.1956) in September 2012, prohibiting all US airlines from participating in the EU-ETS. As a further sign of US displeasure, the bill demanded that American operators of civil aircraft be ‘held harmless’ from the EU-ETS, which had been seen as a unilateral ‘tax’ on US transatlantic movements. These responses were preceded by other similar, and at times more punitive, measures taken by a number of increasingly vocal aviation powerhouses in the ‘emerging’ world. In February 2012, less than two months after the EU-ETS had officially taken effect, the Civil Aviation Administration of China issued a directive to its airlines, banning them from paying charges for carbon emissions to the EU or hiking fares to meet this requirement. In addition, it reportedly blocked some Chinese carriers from placing aircraft orders with Airbus, and withheld rights from Germany’s Lufthansa to fly an A380 from Frankfurt to Shanghai in March the same year. Likewise trying to undermine European aeromobilities in retaliation, the Russian transport ministry threatened to backpedal on a 2006 decision to abolish costly trans-Siberian overflight charges for Asia-bound EU carriers; these Soviet-era charges, if reintroduced, would likely cost European airlines more than the $331 million collected in 2006. Meanwhile, India, another rising aviation juggernaut, had urged its airlines to defy EU-ETS rules. Air India and Jet Airways would later deliberately miss the deadline for reporting their emissions data to the EU. Amid this ‘mobility war’ between the EU and its biggest opposers, two joint declarations were made, not coincidentally in New Delhi (in 2011) and Moscow (in 2012), to consolidate other like-minded states within the anti-ETS camp. More than simply criticizing the unilateral stance of the EU, these statements enrolled the voices of a number of smaller, but equally vested, states in the dispute, such as Qatar, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates. In particular, this list included countries which play a significant role in conducting global traffic to/from Europe, but are yet dependent on aeromobilities for their livelihoods. In reflecting their concerns, the declarations countenanced a more egalitarian stance, stressing the importance of aviation toward economic progress for all, while warning that the EU-ETS would only precipitate ‘serious market distortions and unfair competition’ (Borodina, 2012). It was the collective voice of this ‘coalition of the unwilling’ that would later cause the EU to relent. A geopolitics of (im)mobility? The manner in which Europe’s aspirations for a greener aviation ended up in an anticlimactic suspension of the EU-ETS intimates that the environmental plan may have little to do with any real urgency about the climatic health of the planet. Instead, it represents more of a (renewed) geopolitical interest in, and tussle over, aeromobility among states. Specifically, the recent episode has called into question how, in the contemporary agedone supposedly defined by what Cresswell (2006) disparages as a ‘metaphysics of flows’dmobilities remain a highly contested issue, and even a tenuous right for some of the most ‘developed’ countries in the world. In this instance, the controversies surrounding the EU-ETS appositely signal that a geopolitics of (im)mobility is resurfacing after decades of dormancy, converging around geoeconomic and geoecological concerns that simultaneously mask true state intentions and anxieties surrounding curtailed mobility. What proves to be of pertinence here is the ability of civil aviation to move people and goods across extremely large and globalized extents. As a leading factor in rapid and long-distance international exchange, states have a vested interest to ensure that they acquire as much aerial advantage as possible to be able
to access world markets in an unfettered way, even as they seek to deny others the same privilege. Conversely, states that have been restricted would seek ways to defray any such hindrances in order to gain access to the same rights. For this reason, it is arguable that geopolitics, insofar as the dynamics of global mobility are factored in, is not just performed as a cartographic or areal projection of ‘threats’ and ‘competition’ to be weeded out in particular places or among certain cultural groups. Instead, it can be mobilized through its entanglements with international (im)mobilities, and the geo-strategic importance that states accord to these lines and vectors of (large-scale) movement. To be sure, there is nothing new about this sort of struggle to influence and/or maintain control over world routes. To secure their own dominance, states have long attempted to make air transport one of the most regulated industries in the world, whether in terms of its technical specifications (Butler, 2001) or the rules of engagement between nations wanting to trade (Staniland, 2003). Similar entanglements between intents to secure (or challenge) hegemony and efforts to regulate (or foster) mobility have occurred in other domains, including maritime transport and telecommunications (McDowell, Steinberg, & Tomasello, 2008; Steinberg, 2001). In the current context, with much of the extant literature fixated on the (often micro) geographies of (aero)mobile procedures and conduct, a critical dimension of the geopolitics of global mobilitydi.e. its implications on accessdseems to have been neglected just as transnational flows are increasingly reshaping lives. It may be productive therefore for political geographers to pay closer attention to how aeromobility and, more generally, transnational flows become, themselves, targets of manipulation in the calculations of statecraft. Finally, such a reorientation is not to be mistaken as necessarily incompatible with the study of the quotidian or the scale of the body in geopolitics (Hyndman, 2012). The predication of aviation decisions on certain influential personalities (mostly men), such as the President of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Roberto Kobeh-Gonzales, and the nearly 200 state-linked Director-Generals, gives clue to the possibility of a more banal world at work behind the scenes of ‘high politics’. The friendships/enmities forged between decision-makers, and the consultative sessions convened, ostensibly constitute an integral part of the equation of (im)mobility. Albeit not directly concerned with oppressed lives affected by ‘aeriality’, the world of political leaders can usefully shed light on how standards and procedures in air transport come to be in the first place. Indeed, to return to the case of aviation emissions, as the onus of devising an internationally agreed ETS in place of the rejected EU-ETS presently falls in ICAO’s care, the mundane world of diplomatic discussions and debates that are ongoing now would very soon realize a new geopolitics of (im)mobility for all to seedand contest.
References Aaltola, M. (2005). The international airport: the hub-and-spoke pedagogy of the American empire. Global Networks, 5, 261–278. Borodina, P. (23 February 2012). Multiple nations sign protest, declare actions against EU ETS. Air Transport World. http://atwonline.com/international-aviation-regulation/news/ multiple-nations-sign-protest-declare-actions-against-eu-ets Accessed 16.11.12. Butler, D. (2001). Technogeopolitics and the struggle for control of world air routes. Political Geography, 20, 635–658. Cresswell, T. (2006). On the move: Mobility in the modern western world. New York: Routledge. EUR-Lex. (2009). Directive 2008/101/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November 2008. Official Journal of the European Union, 52, 3–21. European Commission. (2012). What is the EU doing about climate change? European Commission. http://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/brief/eu/index_en.htm Accessed 15.11.12. Hyndman, J. (2012). The geopolitics of migration and mobility. Geopolitics, 17, 243–255.
Guest Editorial / Political Geography 36 (2013) A1–A3 McDowell, S., Steinberg, P., & Tomasello, T. (2008). Managing the infosphere: Governance, technology, and cultural practice in motion. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Shaw, J., & Sidaway, J. (2010). Making links: on (re)engaging with transport and transport geography. Progress in Human Geography, 35, 502–520. Staniland, M. (2003). Government birds: Air transport and state in Western Europe. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Steinberg, P. (2001). The social construction of the ocean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Weiqiang Lin* Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, United Kingdom * Tel.: þ44 (0) 7719 110 778. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected]
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Political Geography journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/polgeo
Guest Editorial
A geopolitics of (im)mobility?
Keywords: Mobilities Transport Aviation Geopolitics EU-ETS
On 12th November 2012, aviation observers cautiously heaved a sigh of relief when European Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard announced that the European Union (EU) would ‘stop the clock’ on its plans to include aviation in the bloc’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). The proposal had been at the center of much controversy since it was first mooted in 2003, not just because of its cost implications on aircraft operators, but also due to its geopolitical ramifications. Under the ETS, the EU would reserve the right to require all carriers, including foreign ones, operating within, to or from its territories to surrender matching amounts of carbon credits annually, to account for their greenhouse gas emissions on flights involving EU airports. With the first of such payments coming due in April 2013, a myriad of countriesdfrom China to Qatardhad put up nothing short of a vehement protest in the time leading up to the present suspension. This editorial argues that a geopolitics of (im)mobility is (re)emerging at the global scale. While, thanks to rapid technological innovation and increasingly liberalized markets, it would appear that civil aviation is making healthy strides in its growth, nation-states are paradoxically grappling with (and conjuring) new headwinds that would hamper the ability (of some) to traverse across the globe freely. The EU-ETS is a case in point not simply because it represents a form of overt restraint on aerial activities, but more so because it seeks to reconfigure the rules of global mobility, as the same now needs to be renegotiateddunder the ambit of climate change and environmental protectiondand hammered out between disparate states. In a way, the EU-ETS, as a contested instrument to advance European interests, corroborates Shaw and Sidaway’s (2010) view that transport and travel concerns are intimately intertwined with geopolitical thinking and practices. This time, however, the (geo)politicization of aviation does not simply entail a methodological revamp of social life, but a struggle over movement itself, striking at the very heart of how, and whether, aeromobilities can take flight. Aviation under the EU-ETS In 2005, the EU-ETS was launched as the world’s first international ‘cap-and-trade’ (i.e. involving the limitation and trading of 0962-6298/$ – see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2012.12.007
greenhouse gas emission allowances) scheme to transform Europe ‘into a highly energy-efficient, low carbon economy’ (European Commission, 2012). In large part owing to this exemplary effort, the EU has touted itselfdnot Americadas the ‘driving force’ and leader in the world’s ecological affairs. In November 2008, the EU took further steps to act on its pledge to phase in new rounds of greenhouse gas reductions at the end of the decade, ahead of imminent post-Rio summits. Arguing that the limitation of emissions from aviation was an ‘essential contribution’ in the global fight against climate change, the EU vowed ‘to take the lead in the negotiation of an ambitious international agreement that [would] achieve the objective of limiting the global temperature increase to 2 C’, while ensuring that such a global agreement would include ‘measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from aviation’ (EURLex, 2009). Subsequent arbitrations on how far, and whose, aerial activities were to be curbed would instigate widespread opposition from the world, even as they served as a (fleeting) demonstration of Europe’s geopolitical leadership and supranational influence. Notwithstanding the transnational nature of aviation, the EU had mandated that, starting from 2012, a 3 percent reduction in total greenhouse gas emissions against 2004–2006 levels would be imposed on all flights taking off or landing in EU aerodromes, based on their entire route, rather than on operations within European airspace. Operators who would not comply, or could not submit the correct number of allowances at the end of each year, would face hefty fines, or risk having their aircraft banned or impounded at European airports. Although careful to couch the new laws within the limits of European jurisdiction, the EU’s attempt to hijack international aeromobilitiesdessentially the arteries of a US-led globality (Aaltola, 2005)dto beef up its own geopolitical profile, and to tacitly benefit manufacturers and operators of its much more advanced fleet, was treated as an arrogant move by many. Starting with the US, the Air Transport Association and two of its members, American and United Airlines, promptly filed a lawsuit against the EU for breaching several international agreements, including the Chicago Convention of 1944 and the EU-US air transport agreement. When
A2
Guest Editorial / Political Geography 36 (2013) A1–A3
the European Court of Justice later overrode this motion and ruled in late 2011 that the EU-ETS was legal, the American Senate passed a bill (S.1956) in September 2012, prohibiting all US airlines from participating in the EU-ETS. As a further sign of US displeasure, the bill demanded that American operators of civil aircraft be ‘held harmless’ from the EU-ETS, which had been seen as a unilateral ‘tax’ on US transatlantic movements. These responses were preceded by other similar, and at times more punitive, measures taken by a number of increasingly vocal aviation powerhouses in the ‘emerging’ world. In February 2012, less than two months after the EU-ETS had officially taken effect, the Civil Aviation Administration of China issued a directive to its airlines, banning them from paying charges for carbon emissions to the EU or hiking fares to meet this requirement. In addition, it reportedly blocked some Chinese carriers from placing aircraft orders with Airbus, and withheld rights from Germany’s Lufthansa to fly an A380 from Frankfurt to Shanghai in March the same year. Likewise trying to undermine European aeromobilities in retaliation, the Russian transport ministry threatened to backpedal on a 2006 decision to abolish costly trans-Siberian overflight charges for Asia-bound EU carriers; these Soviet-era charges, if reintroduced, would likely cost European airlines more than the $331 million collected in 2006. Meanwhile, India, another rising aviation juggernaut, had urged its airlines to defy EU-ETS rules. Air India and Jet Airways would later deliberately miss the deadline for reporting their emissions data to the EU. Amid this ‘mobility war’ between the EU and its biggest opposers, two joint declarations were made, not coincidentally in New Delhi (in 2011) and Moscow (in 2012), to consolidate other like-minded states within the anti-ETS camp. More than simply criticizing the unilateral stance of the EU, these statements enrolled the voices of a number of smaller, but equally vested, states in the dispute, such as Qatar, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates. In particular, this list included countries which play a significant role in conducting global traffic to/from Europe, but are yet dependent on aeromobilities for their livelihoods. In reflecting their concerns, the declarations countenanced a more egalitarian stance, stressing the importance of aviation toward economic progress for all, while warning that the EU-ETS would only precipitate ‘serious market distortions and unfair competition’ (Borodina, 2012). It was the collective voice of this ‘coalition of the unwilling’ that would later cause the EU to relent. A geopolitics of (im)mobility? The manner in which Europe’s aspirations for a greener aviation ended up in an anticlimactic suspension of the EU-ETS intimates that the environmental plan may have little to do with any real urgency about the climatic health of the planet. Instead, it represents more of a (renewed) geopolitical interest in, and tussle over, aeromobility among states. Specifically, the recent episode has called into question how, in the contemporary agedone supposedly defined by what Cresswell (2006) disparages as a ‘metaphysics of flows’dmobilities remain a highly contested issue, and even a tenuous right for some of the most ‘developed’ countries in the world. In this instance, the controversies surrounding the EU-ETS appositely signal that a geopolitics of (im)mobility is resurfacing after decades of dormancy, converging around geoeconomic and geoecological concerns that simultaneously mask true state intentions and anxieties surrounding curtailed mobility. What proves to be of pertinence here is the ability of civil aviation to move people and goods across extremely large and globalized extents. As a leading factor in rapid and long-distance international exchange, states have a vested interest to ensure that they acquire as much aerial advantage as possible to be able
to access world markets in an unfettered way, even as they seek to deny others the same privilege. Conversely, states that have been restricted would seek ways to defray any such hindrances in order to gain access to the same rights. For this reason, it is arguable that geopolitics, insofar as the dynamics of global mobility are factored in, is not just performed as a cartographic or areal projection of ‘threats’ and ‘competition’ to be weeded out in particular places or among certain cultural groups. Instead, it can be mobilized through its entanglements with international (im)mobilities, and the geo-strategic importance that states accord to these lines and vectors of (large-scale) movement. To be sure, there is nothing new about this sort of struggle to influence and/or maintain control over world routes. To secure their own dominance, states have long attempted to make air transport one of the most regulated industries in the world, whether in terms of its technical specifications (Butler, 2001) or the rules of engagement between nations wanting to trade (Staniland, 2003). Similar entanglements between intents to secure (or challenge) hegemony and efforts to regulate (or foster) mobility have occurred in other domains, including maritime transport and telecommunications (McDowell, Steinberg, & Tomasello, 2008; Steinberg, 2001). In the current context, with much of the extant literature fixated on the (often micro) geographies of (aero)mobile procedures and conduct, a critical dimension of the geopolitics of global mobilitydi.e. its implications on accessdseems to have been neglected just as transnational flows are increasingly reshaping lives. It may be productive therefore for political geographers to pay closer attention to how aeromobility and, more generally, transnational flows become, themselves, targets of manipulation in the calculations of statecraft. Finally, such a reorientation is not to be mistaken as necessarily incompatible with the study of the quotidian or the scale of the body in geopolitics (Hyndman, 2012). The predication of aviation decisions on certain influential personalities (mostly men), such as the President of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Roberto Kobeh-Gonzales, and the nearly 200 state-linked Director-Generals, gives clue to the possibility of a more banal world at work behind the scenes of ‘high politics’. The friendships/enmities forged between decision-makers, and the consultative sessions convened, ostensibly constitute an integral part of the equation of (im)mobility. Albeit not directly concerned with oppressed lives affected by ‘aeriality’, the world of political leaders can usefully shed light on how standards and procedures in air transport come to be in the first place. Indeed, to return to the case of aviation emissions, as the onus of devising an internationally agreed ETS in place of the rejected EU-ETS presently falls in ICAO’s care, the mundane world of diplomatic discussions and debates that are ongoing now would very soon realize a new geopolitics of (im)mobility for all to seedand contest.
References Aaltola, M. (2005). The international airport: the hub-and-spoke pedagogy of the American empire. Global Networks, 5, 261–278. Borodina, P. (23 February 2012). Multiple nations sign protest, declare actions against EU ETS. Air Transport World. http://atwonline.com/international-aviation-regulation/news/ multiple-nations-sign-protest-declare-actions-against-eu-ets Accessed 16.11.12. Butler, D. (2001). Technogeopolitics and the struggle for control of world air routes. Political Geography, 20, 635–658. Cresswell, T. (2006). On the move: Mobility in the modern western world. New York: Routledge. EUR-Lex. (2009). Directive 2008/101/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November 2008. Official Journal of the European Union, 52, 3–21. European Commission. (2012). What is the EU doing about climate change? European Commission. http://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/brief/eu/index_en.htm Accessed 15.11.12. Hyndman, J. (2012). The geopolitics of migration and mobility. Geopolitics, 17, 243–255.
Guest Editorial / Political Geography 36 (2013) A1–A3 McDowell, S., Steinberg, P., & Tomasello, T. (2008). Managing the infosphere: Governance, technology, and cultural practice in motion. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Shaw, J., & Sidaway, J. (2010). Making links: on (re)engaging with transport and transport geography. Progress in Human Geography, 35, 502–520. Staniland, M. (2003). Government birds: Air transport and state in Western Europe. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Steinberg, P. (2001). The social construction of the ocean. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
A3
Weiqiang Lin* Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, United Kingdom * Tel.: þ44 (0) 7719 110 778. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected]