Shipping Emissions Back in COP21 Agenda
By Aiswarya Lakshmi
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
The shipping industry emissions is back in the draft Paris COP 21 agreement following a meeting of negotiators in Bonn last week.
Shipping was dropped earlier in October. However, on October 14, E.U. parliamentarians called for emissions reduction targets for both sectors to be set before the end of 2016 by the corresponding UN agencies, the IMO and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
Transport & Environment (T&E) has welcomed the reinsertion of international shipping and aviation CO2 emissions into the draft Paris agreement.
Praising the decision to re-include the industry along with aviation EU sustainability lobby group T&E has called for a “clear signal” to these sectors.
Bill Hemmings, clean shipping and aviation manager at T&E, said: “International aviation and shipping emissions are the elephants in the room for the UNFCCC. The Paris Agreement must send a clear signal – not a passing reference – to the UN bodies regulating these emissions, ICAO and IMO, that time is up and action is now due. The 2 degree global warming limit becomes next to impossible if Paris gives these sectors a free pass.”
Bill Hemmings concluded: “The latest text is the result of developed and developing countries cooperating on this issue for the first time. There is real hope now that Paris will close these gaping loopholes.”