Countries opposed to the EU’s decision to impose an emissions levy on flights in and out of the bloc have this week raised the prospect a compromise deal, after a meeting in Washington D.C. agreed to try and accelerate plans for a new international regime for tackling aviation’s carbon footprint.

The meeting of senior officials from 17 countries opposed to the EU’s inclusion of airlines in its emissions trading scheme (ETS) failed to deliver a joint declaration, but according to sources it did confirm a broad consensus amongst countries to try and resolve the stand-off with the EU through the UN-backed International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

The EU has repeatedly stressed that it is happy to drop its regional mechanism for pricing aviation’s carbon emissions if an equally ambitious international system is introduced for tackling the sector’s rising carbon impact.

“In a nutshell, the meeting confirmed the very solid and strong opposition to the ETS, but also indicated that there is a lot of interest among countries in continuing to work on the suite of activities in ICAO,” a senior US official told reporters, according to news agency Reuters.

The move will be seen as a modest victory for the EU and will crank up pressure on ICAO to deliver plans for a new international emission management mechanism ahead of its next major summit next year.

ICAO is expected to put forward a package of measures, including new voluntary targets to reduce aviation’s emissions, the adoption of fuel efficiency standards and the development of more efficient air traffic management processes.

The Washington D.C. meeting raises the prospect of ICAO making further progress on plans for an international market-based mechanism for curbing emissions, such as carbon trading or offsetting. However, officials stressed that any such mechanism could take years to develop and it remains unlikely that it will be confirmed at the ICAO assembly next year.

The more conciliatory tone from the meeting was welcomed in Brussels, but there remains scepticism that ICAO can deliver a sufficiently ambitious programme for curbing emissions, particularly when many countries remain fiercely opposed to a global system of carbon pricing.

Moreover, attempts to broker a compromise position were overshadowed somewhat by the decision by a key Senate Committee to approve a bill that would effectively make it illegal for US airlines to comply with the EU’s emissions rules, if the ICAO fails to deliver an acceptable global response.

Speaking to BusinessGreen, an EU source said the commission welcomed “that they expressed their commitment for concrete action and progress at ICAO”, adding that it now hoped “this will accelerate the process towards a global solution - which we have always pushed for”.