With rich countries failing to deliver promised amounts of their taxpayers’ money to help developing countries tackle warming, global attention has turned to so-called “innovative” sources of climate finance – like levies on ships, planes or fossil fuel firms – to make up the shortfall.

But at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), the United Nations’ shipping arm, governments have made clear they want the bulk of the revenue from a shipping emissions levy to go towards making it cheaper and easier for companies to put clean fuel in their vessels.

Sitting in the 7th-floor boardroom of the IMO’s riverside London headquarters, Arsenio Dominguez, the IMO’s new head, said “we need to focus on shipping as a sector, as that is what we regulate and that’s where we need to focus the efforts”.

IMO secretary general Arsenio Dominguez (March 18/IMO)

Asked if the money could go into a new UN fund to repair and reduce loss and damage from climate change, Dominguez told Climate Home: “That’s another UN agency – we have no remit there.” The fund, set up under UN climate change talks, is set to be hosted by the World Bank.

While conversations are at an early stage, Dominguez’s view is broadly echoed by the shipping industry – as well as by most governments that have so far submitted formal proposals at the IMO, although Pacific nations want some of the funds to be used outside of shipping.

Loss and damage fund board member Avinash Persaud, from Barbados, urged finance and environment ministers to intervene at the IMO to secure a share of any future shipping levy for addressing the harm caused by worsening extreme weather and rising seas.

Big-emitting sector

As it moves goods around the world, the international shipping industry emits a similar amount of greenhouse gases to Germany but has lagged behind when it comes to setting targets to reduce that pollution.

In July last year, governments at the IMO agreed to aim for net zero emissions in the sector “by or around, i.e. close to 2050” – with interim targets for 2030 and 2040.

At the same time, they agreed to look into putting a price on the industry’s emissions. On Monday, Dominguez said he was confident such a levy would be agreed by this time next year, although the details are still to be fought over.

While nations are split on how high the charge should be – with a group of island nations arguing for the highest tax of $150 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions – submissions from governments, industry and campaign groups all specify that the funds should be used mainly for cleaning up shipping.

Climate protesters dressed as mermaids lie on the floor at an IMO drinks reception last year (Photo credit: Guy Reece)

Kept in house?

A joint submission from the European Union, South Korea, the International Chamber of Shipping, the Environmental Defense Fund and others says a portion of the money should go to cleaning up shipping through investments, research funding and rewards for using clean fuels. 

The money should also address “disproportionate negative impacts” of the transition to clean shipping through training, technical advice and finance for green investments, it adds. An impact assessment is currently being carried out by experts under the guidance of the IMO.

Another joint submission from eight Pacific nations and Belize says the funds should be collected and spent using the principle of “the polluter pays”. That would require the shipping industry as the polluter to stop burning planet-heating fossil fuels “whilst making reparation for the impact on the environment, including people and communities”, the submission specifies.

A shipping negotiator from the climate-threatened Marshall Islands, Albon Ishoda, said the money should be “reinvested in the shipping industry to trigger research, development and deployment into zero-emission maritime technologies and to address climate mitigation efforts”, as well as in “an equitable transition” for small islands and the world’s poorest countries.

How to hold shipping financially accountable for its climate impacts

A Pacific negotiator, who was not authorised to speak to the media, told Climate Home that this transition funding should go to projects both in and outside of the shipping sector according to “the priority needs of the climate most vulnerable”.

A Canadian proposal says each ship’s operator should decide, within certain limits, where the money it pays should go.

International climate finance sought

Loss and damage expert Persaud said shipping industry executives – and even maritime ministers – could not be expected to support a plan to spend money raised from the sector outside the industry. “It’s almost beyond their remit,” he said.

Rather, finance and environment ministers “would need to be part of the push to get the world’s most significant economic system – the trading system – to contribute to the loss and damage caused by current and past emissions in the production, consumption and transportation of goods”, he added.

Friederike Roder from Global Citizen, an anti-poverty campaign group, agreed it is “not surprising” that the IMO and the shipping sector “are trying to retain the proceeds for themselves”. But, she said, the polluter pays principle should apply more broadly to at least part of the proceeds raised from a shipping emissions levy.

Aoife O’Leary, head of shipping-focused environmental think-tank Opportunity Green, also called for some of the money to be spent on protection from climate impacts, such as projects to help flood-hit communities in Bangladesh or build sea walls on Pacific islands.

In Somalia, Green Climate Fund tests new approach for left-out communities

A global finance summit in Paris last year, attended by about 50 heads of state, came to a similar conclusion and led to the launch of a taskforce by France and Kenya to explore “innovative sources” of climate finance ahead of the Cop30 climate summit in late 2025.

Danish climate minister Dan Jorgensen, meanwhile, has called a shipping tax “a potential global source” of “international climate finance”.  

At the IMO, a working group of government shipping negotiators has been formed to hammer out how to raise and spend the money, with a decision expected by this time next year.

The post Shipping sector pushes to keep emissions-tax cash for itself appeared first on Climate Home News.

Climate Home identified ten oil and gas company lobbyists and over 50 employees of the shipping industry on the participant list of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) talks, which the media and public were barred from.

Shipping uses the dirtiest part of a barrel of oil to fuel its vessels and oil companies are likely to struggle to sell that part elsewhere if the industry moves to cleaner fuels based on green hydrogen.

Lack of transparency

Aoife O’Leary is the director of the Sasha Coalition and was among the 44-strong delegation of climate campaigners at the talks, which took place in London at the end of June.

Under record heatwave, US and China “unstick” climate talks

She said that the IMO, the UN’s shipping arm, “violates international standards on transparency in environmental decision making”.

“There are too few climate vulnerable countries participating in the room due to resource limitations while other delegations are overloaded with industry representatives,” said O’Leary.

The cost of attending several weeks of talks in London is too much for many poorer, smaller and more distant governments.

O’Leary said that there are “many interests looking not to fuels that can solve the climate crisis, but rather to expand their sales of fossil fuels by pushing gas as a ‘transition fuel’ for shipping”.

Rasmus Bjerring Larsen is a policy officer at Green Transition Denmark who was at the talks. He told Climate Home: “Industry involvement at the IMO is overwhelming, particularly from big oil and ship owners. Meanwhile civil society and especially media representation is marginal.”

Crunch talks

The week-long meeting, known as the inter-sessional working group, was the behind-closed-doors precursor to a more public week of government discussions about shipping’s climate strategy.

At stake were the questions of what net zero target to set for the industry and whether to set interim 2030 and 2040 targets and consider a tax on ships’ emissions. The shipping industry contributes 3% of global emissions – more than Japan.

Pacific “mixed feelings” after compromise on shipping’s climate goals

At the end of the two weeks, governments agreed to target net zero “by or around, ie close to 2050” and cut emissions by 20% by 2030 and 70% by 2040, compared to 2008 levels.

Lobbyists on the guestlist

Governments bring delegations to the meeting, usually made up of government staff but sometimes including corporate lobbyists or climate campaigners.

Several nations brought lobbyists from oil and gas companies based in their countries. Norway’s delegation included two advisers from Equinor, that of Canada had a regulatory affairs analyst from Irving Oil, and Indonesia brought someone from Pertamina.

The Swiss delegation featured no government employees. Its only representative was Claudio Abbate, the vice-president for government affairs of the Swiss-headquartered Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), which is investing in ships powered by fossil gas.

EU and Argentina strike gas, hydrogen & renewables deal

MSC’s biggest competitors were also there. CMA CGM was a guest of the French government, Cosco of the Chinese delegation and Maersk – the most climate-ambitious container shipping company – was part of the Danish delegation.

A host of governments, including Japan, Greece and Germany, brought representatives of their domestic shipping industry trade associations.

The Cook Islands was represented by an Englishman called Ian Finley, who has worked for a trade association representing the chemical shipping industry.

Observer groups

Other industry representatives attended as observers. Shell lobbyist Alex Revans, ExxonMobil’s Christophe Pouts and Saudi Aramco scientist Hassan Alzain were part of the delegation from the oil industry’s environmental lobby group Ipieca.

At the meeting, Ipieca argued in a written submission that the term “lower [greenhouse gas] emissions energies” should be used instead of stricter terms such as “zero-emission fuels”.

Australia will update the ‘fantasy’ net zero plan it inherited

They added that carbon offsets from outside the shipping sector should be allowed to contribute to industry’s emissions targets.

As at previous shipping talks, Brazil’s delegation included lobbyists from Brazilian mining company Vale.

Brazil was the strongest opponent of a tax on shipping emissions, labelling it a “tax on distance”. Such a tax is likely to harm the competitiveness of Vale’s metal exports to distant markets like China.

Cruise lines were represented by their CLIA association, which included chief Carnival lobbyist Anna Ziou. While container shipping companies have widely varying levels of support for the clean transition, cruise shipping companies are more consistently resistant to green fuel.

Kerry rejects “climate reparations” but praises loss and damage fund

The International Chamber of Shipping, which represents the entire industry, brought an eight-strong delegation and trade associations representing smaller niches of the industry were represented too.

Opaque talks

These talks were closed to the media and to the public. The talks the following week were partly open to the media but were not live-streamed for the public to watch like the UN climate talks are.

Even where journalists are allowed into talks, they are not allowed to name individual government speakers without their permission – a restriction that does not govern other UN talks.

With corporate climate cheats on the chopping block, net zero is growing up

Tristan Smith attended the talks for the trade association IMarEST. He told Climate Home that “sometimes it can be hard to know how industry’s preference affects outcomes”.

But, he said that the “IMO’s processes need the expertise and direct input of industry stakeholders for the design of effective policy. It would be odd to try and operate without this.”

Larsen said that “technical knowledge from industry can be valuable” but “stricter conflict-of-interest safeguards and better representation of climate vulnerable countries, marginalized groups and media are key for the IMO to drive a fair and transparent process.”

He added: “It is crucial to set clear boundaries for when and how technical contributions from industry should be made use of, and when the floor should be reserved for state representatives and civil society.”

Reponding to O’Leary’s criticism, an IMO spokesperson said that a fund had been created to support delegates from developing countries, especially small islands and least developed countries, to attend meetings. They said the fund allowed 12 people to attend the talks, half of them from Pacific islands.

The spokesperson added that the IMO had trialled hybrid participation, allowing delegates to talk to the meeting room remotely.

Larsen’s comments were added on July 20

The post Dozens of oil & industry lobbyists attended secretive shipping emissions talks appeared first on Climate Home News.

When burned, heavy fuel oil emits black carbon – sooty particles that absorb sunlight and trap heat in the atmosphere, contributing to global warming. It is a particular problem in the Arctic, where it darkens the ice so it reflects less light back into space. Between 2015 and 2019, black carbon emissions from ships increased by 85% in the Arctic, according to the Clean Arctic Alliance.

Campaigners welcomed the move, which they said could significantly cut pollution, but noted it was a voluntary measure and relied on governments to introduce supportive policies.

“If all shipping currently using heavy fuel oils while in the Arctic were to switch to distillate fuel, there would be an immediate reduction of around 44% in black carbon emissions from these ships,” said Sian Prior, from the Clean Arctic Alliance. 

“If particulate filters were installed on board these vessels, black carbon emissions could be reduced by over 90%”, she added.

“It is questionable how many private companies will act as a result,” John Maggs, president of the Clean Shipping Coalition, told Climate Home News.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Russia resisted binding action on black carbon, according to Maggs. “There is likely to be ongoing hostility towards and blocking of the much needed mandatory measures at IMO, but now individual states have been given a green light to take action themselves,” he said. 

Kenyan forest communities sidelined as government misses two billion tree target

Despite mounting pressure during Cop26, little headway was made on decarbonising the shipping industry – which emits around one billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent every year. The agreed IMO target is to halve that by 2050 – and without further action, shipping emissions are projected to reach 90-130% of their 2008 levels.

Countries considered strengthening a global climate goal to reduce shipping emissions, but deferred a decision until 2023, when the IMO is set to review its long-term strategy.

Want climate news in your inbox? Sign up for free to get our weekly newsletter and occasional extra bulletins

While countries including the UK, US and Panama – which has the biggest flag registry – backed the Pacific resolution, major emerging economies including India and South Africa objected on equity grounds. They said rich countries should act first and provide finance to help them transition to cleaner fuels.

Despite the pushback, campaigners said the parameters of ambition were shifting. Several years ago, there was strong resistance to setting an absolute emissions goal for industry. At last week’s meeting, the debate centred on whether the target should be zero or net zero emissions. 

Morocco accused of “greenwashing occupation” of Western Sahara 

“Most of those who spoke were talking about absolute zero by 2050 and not net zero with ‘get out of jail free’ offsets,” said Maggs. 

India, the UAE, Bahamas and Liberia were among the countries wanting to leave the door open to carbon offsets.

“It’s important that the IMO moves forward, focused on real in-sector emission reductions and not think it can instead use accountants to spirit away its climate impact,” said Maggs.

The post UN shipping body agrees voluntary measures to cut black carbon in the Arctic appeared first on Climate Home News.

That was the upshot of talks in the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) environment committee on Monday and Tuesday.

There was no consensus behind a specific proposal by three Pacific island nations – the Marshall Islands, Solomon Islands and Kiribati – to make international shipping emissions-free by 2050.

While countries including the UK, US, Canada, Japan and Panama, which has the world’s largest flag registry, backed the resolution, major emerging economies including India, China, South Africa and Turkey, objected on equity grounds. They said the strategy needed to reflect differentiated responsibilities for climate change and deliver finance to help them decarbonise, with targets based on scientific data.

There were signs of broader support in principle for setting a zero, or net zero, target for the sector, which is responsible for nearly 3% of global emissions. This was influenced by the latest science and pressure emerging from this month’s Cop26 climate summit to do more.

“We have a clear majority for zero by 2050,” said Aoife O’Leary, a long-time observer of IMO negotiations and head of Opportunity Green, a non-profit focusing on international climate issues, including shipping. “I’m pleasantly surprised that the Cop26 momentum is holding, although it could be better and stronger.”

Comment: After Cop26, countries must turn climate promises into action on global shipping

Ships emit around one billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent every year. Without further action, shipping emissions are projected to reach 90-130% of their 2008 levels by 2050.

The IMO has a target of reducing international shipping’s emissions by at least 50% by 2050, compared to 2008 levels, which campaigners say is woefully inadequate and far from what is needed to limit global heating to 1.5C.

In the run-up to Cop26, UN chief Antonio Guterres singled out the shipping and aviation sectors for failing to set global targets consistent with meeting the 1.5C goal and called for shipping to be zero emissions by 2050.  “[These sectors’ targets] are more consistent with warming way above 3 degrees,” he said. 

At the summit in Glasgow, 14 nations, including the US, UK and several European countries, endorsed a declaration calling for zero emission shipping by 2050.

However some EU countries that signed the Cop declaration did not support the Pacific islands’ proposal, describing it as “waste of time”. They said efforts should instead be directed towards defining clear short-term targets and mandatory measures to implement these.

Nigeria commits to annual carbon budgets to reach net zero under climate law

“We believe it is not only important to highlight the need for an ambitious target for 2050 but also for absolute emission targets for 2030 and 2040,” one of Germany’s delegates at the IMO told Climate Home News.

“We are in favour of the adoption of a dedicated work plan for the revision of the initial strategy which includes [absolute 2030 and 2040] targets,” said the German delegate. Delegates for Spain and France told Climate Home that they opposed the resolution on similar grounds.

The IMO has a goal of reducing the sector’s carbon intensity – rather than its absolute emissions – by 40% by 2030, on 2008 levels. This translates to just a 2% reduction each year, whereas a 6–7% annual reduction is needed to be compatible with 1.5C, according to analysis by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT).

While supportive of short term action, campaigners said a review of long term ambition could not wait until 2023.

“That’s two years lost during which a clearly stated new higher level of IMO ambition could have been influencing the development of appropriate new measures to cut shipping’s climate impact,”  John Maggs, president of the Clean Shipping Coalition, told Climate Home News. 

“In those two years the industry will have emitted around 20% of its total 1.5C carbon budget,” he said. 

Want climate news in your inbox? Sign up for free to get our weekly newsletter and occasional extra bulletins

The main barrier to action is the belief that the transition can take place in the 2030s, said Maggs. “It has to happen in the 2020s. Shifting to zero by 2050 will help with this but only make a big difference if the logic of 1.5 degrees is translated into an ambitious 2030 target.”

“At the moment there are too many shipowners passing the buck and waiting for alternative fuels,” he said.

There was debate over whether a target should be for net zero or absolute zero emissions. India, the UAE, Bahamas and Liberia were among countries wanting to leave the door open to carbon offsets.

“The language regarding increased ambition and getting to zero by 2050 is very muddled at this point and, so far, has no teeth. There are references to net zero and carbon neutrality which are worrying, but currently countries are only making general comments about their positions,” Jim Gamble, the Arctic programme director at non-profit Pacific Environment, told Climate Home News,

The post UN shipping body considers zero emissions goal, defers decision to 2023 appeared first on Climate Home News.

The post How the shipping industry can halve climate-warming black carbon in the Arctic appeared first on Climate Home News.

The oil spill has been described as one of the worst ecological disasters ever to hit the western Indian Ocean. It has devastated the livelihoods of local fishermen and tour operators, who were already struggling to stay afloat due to the coronavirus pandemic, campaigners on the ground say.

Shipping and ocean experts told Climate Home News that the incident has raised serious concerns about the safety of the fuel used on board the Wakashio and its long-term environmental impacts. More vessels could fail and cause marine pollution if the lessons of the disaster are not learned, they warned.

Yet the Mauritian government, Japanese ship owner Nagashiki Shipping and fuel supplier BP are withholding crucial information that could aid clean-up efforts and prevent future shipwrecks.

An envoy from the International Maritime Organization (IMO) downplayed the environmental threat, saying the leaked fuel was “just like skin cream”.

“It begs the question whether the shipping industry is really holding itself to greater accountability on the product that it uses,” Yuvan Beejadhur, a former blue economy expert at the World Bank and coordinator of citizen movements in Mauritius, told Climate Home News.

The fuel

In January 2020, the IMO – the UN body responsible for international shipping – introduced a sulphur cap, banning ships from using marine fuels with a sulphur content above 0.5%.

This measure to protect public health from sulphur oxide emissions led to the oil industry developing a wide range of very low sulphur fuel oils (VLSFOs).

VLSFOs are cheap, blended fuels made from residue oil, the dregs at the bottom of the barrel, and more refined products, such as gasoline or diesel.

When VLSFOs started being used in January 2020, very little was known about them, according to Dr Sian Prior, lead advisor to the Clean Arctic Alliance. “Nothing on levels of air pollution when they were burned, nothing on how they reacted if spilled and nothing on the environmental impact,” she told Climate Home News.

In 2020 several studies were published which indicate that VLSFOs are far from green. Although they emit significantly less sulphur when burned than other marine fuels, they cause higher black carbon emissions because they contain a large number of aromatic compounds, according to a study by the German Environment Agency, seen by Climate Home.

Besides the emissions they produce, there are also concerns about how VLSFOs react with water. 

A local volunteer assists with the clean-up of the Wakashio oil spill in Mauritius in August 2020 (Photo: Fawzee Mohamad Barkhut)

Two weeks after the Wakashio grounding, the IMO sent representative Matthew Sommerville to provide technical advice and assist with the clean up. In comments to reporters in Mauritius, Sommerville described the spilled VLSFO as “not really black thick oil… It’s just like skin cream.”

“It goes away. It’s not the end of the world – it cleans. Look how easily it is cleaning off. It could have been a lot worse if it had been a different type of oil,” he said. 

When asked by Climate Home News if the IMO backed this characterisation of VLSFO, spokesperson Nathasha Brown said: “We will wait for the full report to see [if there are] any lessons to be learned.”

Experts disagree with Sommerville’s assessment and say that VLSFO has similar characteristics to traditional heavy fuel oil (HFO), a viscous oil which solidifies quickly in water, making it incredibly difficult to clean up.

A 2020 study by Norwegian marine research institution SINTEF found that VLSFO has a similar composition to HFO when spilled in water. “The oils tested indicate a high degree of persistence on the sea surface,” the SINTEF researchers said, adding that “the oil spill response can be even more challenging” than in the case of traditional fuel oil, such as HFO, particularly in cold water.

Angola’s oil dependency thwarts its exit from the group of poorest nations

A report seen by Climate Home by the International Standards Organization, which will be discussed at an IMO meeting in March, also classes VLSFO as an HFO based on its density. 

“It can be concluded that the vast majority of VLSFOs would fall under the definition of HFO in the HFO ban approved by MEPC 75,” the report noted, citing the decision by the IMO’s environmental committee in November to restrict HFO use in Arctic waters. 

In late August, a month after the Wakashio ran aground, dead dolphins started washing up on Mauritius’ shores. A spokesperson for the fisheries ministry attributed the deaths to shark attacks, telling Reuters that the dolphins had wounds and blood around their jaws, “no trace of oil however.” Environmental groups called on the government to conduct an autopsy. To date the results of the autopsy remain unknown.

“The dolphins, whales and porpoises that died – it’s still not been explained whether it was caused by sulphur fuel. No results have been communicated,” said Beejadhur. 

Beejadhur said many of the long-term environmental impacts of VLSFO have not been thoroughly assessed, despite the fact that the fuel is now widely used within the industry.

The Wakashio wrecked off the coast of Mauritius (Photo: Fawzee Mohamad Barkhut)

The shipwreck

According to the Wakashio’s owner, Nagashiki, the ship ran aground because the crew was sailing too close to the shore and was not aware of safety procedures. 

“There was a lack of awareness of the dangers of navigating close to the coast… and insufficient implementation of regulations that must be observed in order to safely execute voyages,” the company said in a statement. 

But experts say that VLSFO has been linked to engine wear and could have caused the engine of the Wakashio to fail. No assessment of the condition of the engine has been made public.

Sulphur has some lubricating qualities and if it is removed from the fuel, engines can get stuck, Branko Berlan, the representative for the International Transport Federation at the IMO, told Climate Home News.

IMO: Major ship emissions study flags a bigger role for governments

If operators don’t use other acidic lubricants, similar to sulphur, abrasive calcium deposits can build up inside the engine cylinders which could ultimately lead to engine wear or failure, according to a report by fuel testing company Veritas Petroleum Services (VPS), seen by Climate Home. VPS said in May it had identified over 40 ships that had experienced major engine damage since they started using VLSFO in January 2020.

Part of the problem is that operators do not know what type of fuel they are handling and how to ensure it is safe to use on board their ships, according to Berlan. “Exact procedures and involved substances are unknown. You never know what you are receiving as there is no regulation around quality,” he said. 

“Any petroleum-based fuel oil has potential safety risks. Ship engineers and ship masters need to be aware of potential safety issues with the fuel they use and have to manage any risks,” said the IMO’s Brown, adding that safety guidance was issued before ships started using VLSFO.

“Through 2020, and into 2021 to date, [the] IMO has not received any reports of safety issues linked to VLSFO,” Brown said. 

The missing sample

One of the biggest omissions from the investigation into the Wakashio grounding is that fuel from onboard the ship was never tested by independent analysts. 

In September, Mauritius’ ministry of environment said it had asked the Australian Maritime Safety Agency (AMSA) to carry out an independent analysis of a fuel sample from the Wakashio. 

AMSA told Forbes in January that it never received a fuel sample from BP, the oil company that supplied the fuel used by the Wakashio. 

BP said it has analysed the fuel but has not publicly disclosed the chemical composition. 

The fuel on board the Wakashio “fully met the specified standard that is recognised across the international bunkering industry,” BP said in a statement. BP said that the fuel was also tested by Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL), a subsidiary of Nagashiki Shipping and the company that chartered the Wakashio.

“MOL raised no concerns about the quality of the oil, nor have the operators of seven other vessels that received the same fuel,” BP said. A spokesperson did not respond to follow-up questions about why BP did not supply a sample to AMSA as requested.

Local volunteers made booms to help contain the spilled fuel oil (Photo: Fawzee Mohamad Barkhut)

But experts say much remains unknown about VLSFO and it is critical samples from the Wakashio are analysed to avoid future disasters and help Mauritius recover from this oil spill.

“It’s paramount to know the oil’s chemical composition so you can tailor the best and most successful response. You don’t have an idea of the compounds in there. [They] dictate how toxic [the spill] may be,” according to Chris Reddy, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who has analysed major oil spills, including the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010. 

“Knowledge about this spill could help us inform how things may play out in Mauritius,” Reddy told Climate Home News. He and his team analysed a sample of floating fuel residue, collected on 16 August.

“We don’t know if this was a low-sulphur material, but it’s unlike anything we’ve seen spilled before—that alone demands a closer look,” Reddy said after analysing the sample in October.

“We didn’t get the original product from the ship. A sample was collected from the beach and was a week or two old. Based on experience, it changed a little [compared to] the spilled fuel oil.” Reddy told Climate Home News.

Unanswered questions

“Today, uncertainty about Mauritius recovery persists, while no major action has been taken to protect the island’s waters from a future incident,” climate campaigners wrote in an Al Jazeera article this month. 

“No results have been communicated,” said Beejadhur, adding that the IMO and government investigators have had little engagement with local fishermen, whose livelihoods have been destroyed by the oil spill. 

Campaigners are critical of the meagre compensation offered to affected communities. The government set up a “Wakashio solidarity grant” for around 3,000 people, offering them a one-time pay out of Rs 20,000 ($500), according to activist group Rezistans ek Alternativ.

Climate news in your inbox? Sign up here

According to maritime law, the ship owner is responsible for damage caused by an oil spill. That means Nagashiki Shipping is liable. Nagashiki said in July that it would “deal with compensation claims based on applicable laws”.

Due to a technicality, that compensation could be capped at $18 million, regardless of the scale of the damage.

To date no payout has been made and it remains unclear how far the compensation negotiations have progressed. Mauritius’ ministry of the blue economy, marine resources, fisheries and shipping did not respond to Climate Home’s questions regarding the insurance claim.

Mauritians worry that they will be left to deal with the recovery from the devastating oil spill themselves. 

“The saddest fact is if we go back to normal and people forget about the Wakashio crisis,” said Beejadhur.

The post Mauritius oil spill: questions mount over ship fuel safety appeared first on Climate Home News.

Countries approved the proposal during an environmental committee meeting of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) – the UN body responsible for international shipping – on Friday.

The decision came several days after countries attending the IMO meeting agreed to a controversial package of energy efficiency measures. Campaigners say both measures fall far short of both the IMO and Paris Agreement goals to reduce emissions and limit global warming.

Finland, Germany, Iceland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the US proposed the ban to protect the fragile Arctic region from oil spills.

HFO has been banned in Antarctic waters since 2011, but plans for similar restrictions in the Arctic have been met with resistance, mainly from Russia. Opponents inserted a host of exemptions and waivers that weakened the rule.

“What was approved today allows ships to continue using HFO in the Arctic until July 2029,” Bryan Comer, senior marine researcher at the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), told Climate Home News.

“Unfortunately IMO member states decided to delay implementation until July 2024, and to forge ahead with a regulation that actually guarantees that ships can use HFO in the Arctic for the rest of the decade, rather than banning it,” said Comer.

Russia resists tougher climate targets in dash for Arctic gas

If the newly approved ban had been in place in 2019, around 75% of ships running on HFO would have been allowed to continue using the fuel in the Arctic, according to a study published by the ICCT in September.

Between 2015-2019, HFO use increased by 75%, according to the ICCT study. If the fleet continues to grow, the numbers of oil tankers and bulk carriers that qualify for an exemption would increase “and the effectiveness of the ban would be further eroded,” Comer and his co-authors warned. 

“The IMO have chosen to kick the can 10 years down the road,” John Maggs, president of the Clean Shipping Coalition and senior policy advisor at Seas at Risk, told Climate Home. 

“They are good at creating the impression that they are doing something, but when you look closely, you discover that it is not going to change for years,” he said. 

In a speech to meeting attendees, Maggs stressed that it was misleading to refer to the new policy as a ban.

“It will inevitably cause widespread confusion, with the wider world assuming that a ‘ban’ stops HFO being used in the Arctic when actually in the mouth of the IMO it only means a modest and likely temporary reduction in its use for the first ten years,” he said. 

Anger as UN body approves deal that allows ship emissions to rise to 2030

“There are so many caveats in the ban, it is basically meaningless,” Dr Sian Prior, lead advisor to the Clean Arctic Alliance, which campaigns to ban HFO in the Arctic, told Climate Home News. 

All ships with a protected fuel tank located inside the double hull are automatically exempt and any bearing the flag of one of the five Arctic coastal states can apply for a waiver, Prior said.

In a concession to Russia, the IMO allowed Arctic coastal nations to apply for a waiver when operating in their own waters. Russia argued that a complete ban would “negatively impact the local communities and industries of the region” who rely on ships to receive food, fuel and goods. In 2019, 366 ships would have been eligible for a waiver, including 325 bearing Russian flags, according to the ICCT.

The regulation does not include any concrete measures to tackle black carbon pollution, said Prior. When burned, HFO emits black carbon – a pollutant that absorbs sunlight and traps heat in the atmosphere, contributing to global warming. It will only lead to a 5% reduction in black carbon emissions, according to the ICCT study. 

Oil spills pose another serious environmental concern. If HFO ends up in the water, it is extremely difficult to clean up. “HFO is very heavy and forms an emulsion in water – you end up with 10 times the volume,” said Prior. 

“The IMO is treading water: delaying action will not make the climate emergency magically disappear,” said Greenpeace oceans campaigner Veronica Frank. “In a year where a global pandemic made us question our relationship with the natural world and a massive oil spill has turned into the worst environmental disaster in Mauritius, what further evidence does the International Maritime Organisation need to move the shipping sector away from fossil fuels?”

The post UN shipping body approves Arctic heavy fuel oil ‘ban’, delayed for a decade appeared first on Climate Home News.

The deal, which was designed to curb the sector’s carbon footprint, will instead hand out ships a free pass to pollute for the next decade, campaigners warn.

Nations approved the proposal during a meeting of the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) environment committee on Tuesday. Under IMO rules, it will take around two years for the agreement to come into force.

The package of short-term technical and operational measures which includes reducing vessels’ engine power and the introduction of ship-level carbon intensity targets, will only shave off 1% of the sector’s emissions growth by 2030, according to research by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT).

Under business as usual, annual emissions from shipping are forecast to grow 15% by 2030. With the newly approved measures, the projection is 14% growth.

Ships to get free pass on emissions until 2030, under compromise proposal

Bryan Comer, senior marine researcher at the ICCT and co-author of the study, told Climate Home News that to meet the IMO’s own target of reducing global emissions from shipping by at least 50% by 2050 from 2008 level, emissions should decrease by at least 15% by 2030.

And carbon-cutting efforts would need to toughen to 70% of emissions reductions by 2030 if the sector is to align with limiting global heating to 1.5C — the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement.

“Clearly, the IMO will need to take additional actions, rapidly to get on track,” he said.

Tuvalu, the Solomon Island and the Marshall Islands were the only countries to explicitly reject the proposal in what campaigners described as contentious and “extremely toxic negotiations”.

Albon Ishoda, the Marshall Islands’ ambassador to Fiji and head of the IMO delegation, described the package as “incapable of achieving our long-term climate goals in the shipping industry”.

The world is moving to #NetZero but the global shipping sector seems to go in the other direction. I call on .@IMOhq delegates to veto the J/5.rev1 proposal and stand on the right side of history #CleanShipping #ClimateActionNow

— Laurence Tubiana (@LaurenceTubiana) November 16, 2020

In a rare intervention, Laurence Tubiana, an architect of the Paris Agreement, urged IMO delegates to veto the proposal and “stand on the right side of history”.

Japan, China, Nigeria, Philippines, Mexico, Cyprus were among those to support the deal. European nations also backed the proposal despite some expressing disappointment at the low level of ambition. Canada reportedly supported the package “as a first step” but admitted it did not align with the IMO’s long term climate ambition.

Russia resists tougher climate targets in dash for Arctic gas

Green groups have accused nations of approving a deal that is inconsistent with the Paris goals. Although international shipping, like aviation, is not explicitly regulated by the Paris accord, campaigners say the sector needs to align to global efforts to curb emissions “well below 2C” and strive towards 1.5C.

In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found global carbon dioxide emissions needed to fall by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050 for a chance of keeping temperature rise to 1.5C.

John Maggs, president of the Clean Shipping Coalition and senior policy advisor at Seas At Risk, said: “As scientists are telling us we have less than 10 years to stop our headlong rush to climate catastrophe, the IMO has decided that emissions can keep on growing for 10 years at least. Their complacency is breath-taking. Our thoughts are with the most vulnerable who will pay the highest price for this act of extreme folly.”

In a statement, NGO Transport & Environment described the IMO deal as an “abandonment of any effort to tackle climate change in the short term” and accused countries that supported it of having “lost any moral ground to criticise regions or nations trying to tackle shipping emissions”.

The agreement combines proposals put forward by Japan, Denmark, Germany and France.

The first part of the deal requires ships to reduce their engine power to improve energy efficiency from 2023. In practice, this will have little bearing on operations and lead to “paper improvements” rather than real emissions reductions, Faïg Abbasov, shipping director at Transport & Environment, told Climate Home News.

Climate news in your inbox? Sign up here

From 2026, ships will have to comply with mandatory carbon intensity targets which can be met through speed reduction or the use of alternative fuels for example. Compliance will be monitored in a three-year cycle, with ships only needing to meet the standard one year in three.

“It’s nonsense,” said Abbasov, adding there was little prospect of enforcement for ships that failed to comply to the target three years in a row.

Abbasov said the negotiations had been so difficult no country would want to re-open negotiations any time soon.  “The EU has given up on this… Europe signed up for a deal because it could not bear having no deal,” he said.

Instead, nations would keep their political capital to negotiate a global carbon pricing mechanism for the shipping industry in the medium term — a measure backed by a number of progressive nations, including the Marshall Islands.

Transport & Environment is urging governments to take national and regional action to curb the sector’s emissions, such as setting carbon intensity regulations for ships calling at their ports and creating low- and zero-emission priority shipping corridors.

It called on the EU to include emissions from shipping in its carbon markets and mandate the use of alternative fuels and energy saving technologies. “Across the world nations must take action on maritime emissions where the UN agency has utterly failed,” said Abbasov.

The post Anger as UN body approves deal that allows ship emissions to rise to 2030 appeared first on Climate Home News.

Japan, China, South Korea, Norway and several EU member states are among 14 countries to agree on a package of energy efficiency measures for existing ships, ahead of next week’s IMO environmental committee meeting. The International Chamber of Shipping also backs the submission.

In the proposal, seen by Climate Home, they suggest imposing a combination of mandatory short-term technical and operational measures on the world’s 60,000 vessels, from reducing engine power to introducing ship-level carbon intensity targets. These measures would not be enforced until 2030 – a decade too late, green groups say.

Bryan Comer, a senior researcher at the International Council on Clean Transportation, told Climate Home that the proposal ignores scientific and technical recommendations made by climate campaigners. “What’s on the table now may not even be enough to achieve the IMO’s minimum 2030 target. It’s certainly not Paris-aligned,” said Comer. 

“Every year that we allow shipping emissions to go up, it is eating up more of the carbon budget. More drastic actions will need to be taken later,” Comer said.

EU considers crackdown on methane leaks from imported oil and gas

The proposal is modelled on Japan’s Energy Efficiency Existing Ship Index (EEXI) which would impose energy efficiency targets on existing ships based on their type and size, and is supported by Norway, Greece and Panama. 

Limiting engine power to reduce emissions is the easiest way for ships to comply with EEXI, according to a report by the ICCT. EEXI would only make ‘a small contribution’ to the IMO’s climate goals and reduce CO2 emissions from the existing fleet by just 0.8-1.6% by 2030, the ICCT concluded. 

In the new IMO proposal, the countries suggest combining EEXI with other operational measures, including a carbon intensity indicator, proposed by Denmark, Germany and France, which would set individual targets for every ship. 

Campaigners describe it as a compromise, which lacks urgency and commitment to address the scale of the problem. International shipping produces around one billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions every year, accounting for 3% of annual global emissions. Without further action, ship emissions in 2050 are expected to reach 90-130% of 2008 levels. 

Faig Abbasov, shipping programme director at Brussels-based think-tank Transport & Environment, told Climate Home that many of the measures, including limiting engine power, are “empty shell” pledges. “Ships aren’t using their engine power to the maximum anyway,” he said. 

“The measures are voluntary for the next decade. There is no reason for member states to go beyond what the regulation says. They will just wait until then,” Abbasov said.

Major ship emissions study flags a bigger role for governments

The IMO has set the target of cutting CO2 emissions from international shipping by at least 50% by 2050, compared to 2008 levels, with carbon intensity reduced 40% by 2030. When the IMO announced these targets in 2018, it said it was  pursuing “a pathway of CO2 emissions reduction consistent with the Paris Agreement temperature goals.” But experts say the IMO targets are not in line with the strongest Paris Agreement goal to limit global warming to 1.5C. “This requires full decarbonisation by 2050,” said Abbasov.

“Leaving the efficiency of ships unregulated for another decade, the clear and intended result of this proposal, is certain to allow shipping’s huge 1 billion tonnes of annual GHG emissions to keep rising for the next 10 years and beyond,” said Kate Young, a campaigner for Generation Climate Europe, the largest coalition of youth-led NGOs in Europe.

The IMO’s 2018 strategy said it would prioritise short-term measures that achieved emissions reductions before 2023.

“The countries trying to push enforcement back until 2030, and for some ships only, are simply hoping no-one will notice they are removing all the ambitious bits of a major international climate agreement reached by over 100 countries just two years ago,” Young said. 

The proposal came a few days after the EU Parliament voted to include maritime CO2 emissions in the EU carbon market from 2022, following criticism that shipping is the only sector to not face emissions reduction targets. The decision will force shipowners to buy carbon permits to cover emissions during voyages in Europe or international voyages which start or finish at a European port. 

The EU decision could force the IMO to ramp up its climate ambition, campaigners say. “By going first, the EU is putting pressure on the IMO to act,” Abbasov said.

The post Ships to get free pass on emissions until 2030, under compromise proposal appeared first on Climate Home News.

The UN body responsible for global shipping, which is based in London, also closed its headquarters to staff and visitors on Thursday and Friday as a precautionary measure.

The IMO put off talks by the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC), which had been due to meet in London from 30 March to 3 April. The MEPC is reviewing proposals to improve the energy efficiency of ships.

A total of five IMO meetings have now been cancelled, including a working group on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from ships from 23-27 March.

The rescheduling of the meetings will be announced “in good time for delegates to make appropriate arrangements,” the IMO said.

In a statement, it cited “the rapid increase of cases worldwide and the continuing difficulties for some delegates from IMO member states travelling from abroad to attend IMO meetings” and WHO’s announcement as reasons for the decision.

Coronavirus: UN delays talks on global ocean biodiversity treaty

Countries members to the IMO have agreed to reduce carbon emissions from global shipping by 40% from 2008 levels by 2030 and at least halve its greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The IMO is working to finalise measures to support its CO2 intensity reduction goal this year. The MEPC meeting was due to review a number of short-term measures to cut carbon emissions.

A controversial proposal by Japan to fit ships with engine power limitation devices to indirectly reduce speed and fuel use was on the agenda for review.

Research by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) has shown the proposal will not directly have an impact of carbon emissions because ships are already operating slower than the proposal’s implied limit.

Faig Abbasov, the shipping programme manager at NGO Transport & Environment, told Climate Home News it was too early to predict the impacts on the negotiations but that much depended on when the meeting would be able to take place.

“Timing matters because if the IMO reaches an agreement on stringent reduction measures, it will then need six months to be adopted followed by 10+6 months to go through the tacit acceptance process,” he said.

“In that sense, any delay in the approval of measures that could have happened at the MEPC meeting would have implications on that timeline as well.”

Coronavirus delays global efforts for climate and biodiversity action

This is the latest global climate meeting to be affected by the spread of the virus, also known as Covid-19.

On Wednesday, the UN General Assembly agreed to postpone a key meeting when countries were due to finalise a global ocean treaty that would enable the creation of marine protected areas in the high seas.

UN Climate Change has also cancelled or postponed all physical meetings until the end of April.

The spread of the virus is putting increasing pressure on the climate and biodiversity timetable this year, with a number of high-level meetings likely pushed back to the summer and the second half of the year.

The post Coronavirus: IMO postpones key meeting on reducing shipping emissions appeared first on Climate Home News.

A study by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), an independent research group, found that CO2 intensity of international shipping had already been reduced by 30% from 2008 levels in 2018.

That year, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) set a 40% reduction target by 2030.

The paper’s authors suggested widespread “slow-steaming” – a practice that reduces ship’s operational speed and fuel use by not using the engine at full power – was behind the drop in CO2 intensity.

Overcapacity in ship transport supply has caused ship speed to drop by 20% between 2008 and 2015, according to the ICCT.

“This suggests that the 2030 goal may be tightened when International Maritime Organisation (IMO) revises the strategy in 2023,” the report noted.

Dan Rutherford, the ICCT’s programme director for marine and aviation and one of the study’s authors, told Climate Home News the findings pointed “to the need for the IMO to adapt a more stringent 2030 target”.

The report added that ship speeds could rebound by 2030, depending on factors such as the state of global trade, oil prices and freight rates.

The findings were submitted to the IMO on Monday ahead of a round of talks at the end of March.

Marshall Islands, Suriname, Norway upgrade climate plans before Cop26

In 2018, the shipping sector committed to reduce its emissions by at least 50% from 2008 levels by 2050, with efforts to curb carbon intensity of international shipping by 70% by 2050.

International shipping accounts for 2-3% of global emissions but, like aviation, the sector’s emissions are not covered by the Paris Agreement.

Projections by CE Delft for the IMO found that shipping emissions could increase up to 120% by 2050 and, under a business as usual scenario, the sector could account for 10% of global emissions by mid-century.

The IMO is working to finalise measures to support its CO2 intensity reduction goals this year.

Proposals include submissions backed by France and Greece for a speed limit on tankers and bulk carriers. Norway and Japan have also proposed plans that would allow companies to decide how to meet energy efficiency targets by using cleaner fuel or more efficient vessels.

Among Japan’s proposals is a plan to fit ships with engine power limitation devices to indirectly reduce speed and fuel use.

Japan is the world’s third largest ship-owning country and an influential voice inside the IMO. Hideaki Saito, of Japan, chairs the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) – the committee which deals with climate change and emissions reduction issues.

The ICCT study aimed to assess the effectiveness of using engine power limitation to reduce fuel use and CO2 emissions. It concluded that mandatory engine power limitations measures “will not directly reduce fuel use and CO2 emissions” because ships are already operating slower than the proposal’s implied limit.

Engine power limitations measures “would need to be aggressive in order to contribute to the IMO’s climate goals,” the report said.

Campaigners urge African Union to stop fossil fuel proliferation on continent

Research found that limiting engine power by 30% or less would have a negligible impact on emissions and would deliver theoretical on-paper emissions reductions, rather than real-world cuts, Rutherford told CHN.

Only by limiting engine power by more than 50% would the measure lead to more meaningful CO2 reductions, the report said. Halving engine power would reduce emissions of existing fleets of about 3% compared with business as usual, taking into account 2018 speed and different types of ships.

Increasing that number to 60%, would reduce emissions of the global fleet by about 6%, according to the ICCT. However, such reduction of engine power would “begin affecting significant numbers of [ship’s] operational hours” the study noted.

In contrast, research funded by the EU Commission found restricting ship speed by 20% below 2012 levels could achieve up to 34% of CO2 emissions reduction by 2030.

John Maggs, president of the Clean Shipping Coalition and senior policy advisor at Seas at Risk, accused Japan of leading a “ignore-the-science coalition”.

“In a technical-sounding debate about ‘short-term measures’, Japan is proposing CO2 rules that are weak, opaque, and will fail to actually cut emissions,” he said.

We need your help… Climate Home News is an independent news outlet dedicated to the most important global stories. If you can spare even a few dollars each month, it would make a huge difference to us. Our Patreon account is a safe and easy way to support our work.

Across the sector, some companies and shipping associations have shown appetite for more ambitious climate targets.

In reflections published at the start of the year, Bimco, one of the world’s largest shipping association representing ship owners, said “substantial gains” in emissions reduction had been made since 2008.

“It is, therefore, not a question of if the shipping industry will meet the IMO 2030 objective of achieving 40% carbon efficiency improvements over 2008, but about what the target should be increased to in 2023 when the IMO adopts its final greenhouse gas reduction strategy,” it said.

Bimco was also part of a coalition of shipping association that proposed the creation of an emissions reduction research and development programme funded via a mandatory contribution of £2 per tonne of marine fuel oil purchased for consumption by ships – a move campaigners said fell far short of the need to cut emissions.

Maersk, the world’s largest container shipping company, has pledged to achieve carbon neutrality in its operations by 2050 and to have developed commercially viable carbon neutral vessels by 2030.

The post Shipping could raise ambition of 2030 climate target, study shows appeared first on Climate Home News.

The UN Biodiversity summit, due to take place in Kunming in October, is a critical moment for countries to agree on a global framework to halt the destruction of the planet’s plants and wildlife.

But the coronavirus outbreak has forced UN agencies to relocate preparatory talks due to take place next month in Kunming to the offices of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome, Italy.

The move came after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared a “public health emergency of international concern” because of the rapid spread of the virus. More than 200 people in China have died since the beginning of the epidemic and nearly 10,000 cases have now been reported.

Meanwhile, travel restrictions to and from China have intensified in recent days. On Thursday, the Italian government announced it was suspending all flights between Italy and China. Travel restrictions could make it more difficult for Chinese participants to attend the meeting.

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) said it was committed to ensure preparations for the October summit “proceed in a timely and effective manner”.

Spawning crisis

The desert locusts swarm in the Horn of Africa could provoke a humanitarian crisis, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned.

The insects are ravaging the East African region in the worst outbreak in decades and is causing “an unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods,” the UN agency has said.

Urgent calls for funding to stop the outbreak have been issued as the locusts have started laying eggs and the FAO fears new swarms could form in Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen.

Fuel blunder

The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has come under pressure to regulate new shipping fuels introduced at the start of the year to reduce sulphur levels, which could be accelerating warming in the Arctic.

Research shows the new fuel blends could be causing a surge in black carbon emissions – a short-lived but potent pollutant that traps heat in the atmosphere and contributes to warming.

The fuels which were designed to improve air quality and protect human health could be increasing the shipping’s sector climate impact, especially in the Arctic region.

Now campaigners are asking tough questions about who knew what and when about the new fuels’ potential impacts on emissions. “It’s hard to see how experts in marine fuels like yourselves could not have been aware” of the risks, they said.

Carbon source

A new study found that indigenous and protected land in the Amazon emit far less carbon dioxide than the rest of the rainforest.

The study is the first to comprehensively include carbon losses from forest degradation (such as illegal logging and mining, floods and droughts), deforestation and forest growth and provides a detailed carbon account of the changing land use.

It prompted calls for greater support for indigenous land rights as a cost-effective way to limit climate change. Jocelyn Timperley reports.

Ratification

10 countries still haven’t ratified the Paris Agreement. Turkey and four large oil exporting countries, including Iran, Iraq, Angola and Libya, have not formally endorsed the agreement. Alister Doyle takes a look at who makes the list.

Quick hits

• UN relocates biodiversity talks to Italy from China after coronavirus emergency
• UN biodiversity meeting in China under review following coronavirus outbreak
• Locusts lay eggs as plague worsens in Horn of Africa, UN warns
• Indigenous lands, protected areas limit Amazon’s carbon emissions
• IMO under pressure to regulate new ship fuels over Arctic warming
• Which countries have not ratified the Paris climate agreement?

And in climate conversations

• UN ruling on climate refugees could be gamechanger for climate action

The post Coronavirus side effect – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

From 1 January this year, stricter sulphur levels for ships have come into force to reduce air pollution and human health impacts such as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.

Shipping companies and fuel providers have been using new blends of fuels to meet the sulphur guidelines. But instead, research suggested the new fuels could lead to an increase of the sector’s climate impacts.

A study conducted by Finland and Germany and submitted to the IMO found the new very low sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO) used by ships contained more aromatic compounds which are causing a surge in black carbon emissions – a short-lived pollutant that strongly absorbs sunlight and traps heat in the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.

The new hybrid fuels resulted in a 10% to 85% increase in black carbon emissions compared to previously used heavy fuel oil, the study found. Black carbon is already estimated to represent up to 21% of shipping’s climate impact.

Is the shipping industry’s R&D climate fund a Trojan Horse?

“While black carbon stays in the atmosphere for only a few days or weeks, in that time, it traps 3200-times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, measured over a 20-year period,” Bryan Comer, a senior researcher at the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) told Climate Home News.

When black carbon settles on the Arctic, it reduces the reflectiveness of the snow and ice and generates heat, which accelerates melting. This makes the Arctic – which is already warming twice as fast as the rest of the world  – particularly sensitive to these emissions.

Global warming is melting Arctic sea ice and opening the region to more shipping, including a short-cut route between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

Now campaigners are asking the marine fuel organisations responsible for drawing up official guidance on the supply and use of the low-sulphur fuel blends, why the impact on black carbon emissions was not identified before the new fuels were put on the market.

In a letter sent to the 11 organisations that co-authored the joint industry guidance, the Clean Arctic Alliance, a coalition of organisations campaigning for a ban on heavy fuel oil from Arctic shipping, demanded the authors to explain why action hadn’t been taken sooner.

“It’s hard to see how experts in marine fuels like yourselves could not have been aware of the elevated aromatics in these new fuels and of the link between aromatics in fuels and black carbon emissions, and we believe an explanation from industry and refiners is urgently needed,” the letter read.

We need your help… Climate Home News is an independent news outlet dedicated to the most important global stories. If you can spare even a few dollars each month, it would make a huge difference to us. Our Patreon account is a safe and easy way to support our work.

Sian Prior, lead advisor to the Clean Arctic Alliance who wrote the letter, told Climate Home News: “If [the oil industry] know their product at all they would have realised there was a potential problem.”

The IMO’s sub-committee on pollution prevention and response is meeting next month and the issue of black carbon emissions and the use of heavy fuel oil in the Arctic are on the agenda.

An IMO spokeswoman said the committee will have the opportunity to discuss the submission made by Finland and Germany and report back to its parent body, the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC), which is meeting at the end of March.

CHN contacted seven of the 11 organisations recipients of the letter which have a formal consultative status at the IMO.

A spokesman for Ipieca, the global oil and gas industry association for advancing environmental and social performance, said the remit of the guidance provided to the shipping sector was “limited” and  focused on supporting ship managers with the “operational aspects of the transition” and “help ensure the safety of vessels and crews”.

He added the research by Finland Germany focused on fuel blends “most likely to be used in 2020” and that at this stage there was “no comprehensive overview available that documents the actual variability of fuel types and representative fuel quality on the market”.

This, he said, made it “too early to draw any valid and meaningful conclusions on the level of black carbon emissions” associated with the use of VLSFOs.

Today, shipping is taking responsibility for our role in the climate crisis

The International Union of Marine Insurance (IUMI) and the Royal Institute of Naval Architects declined to comment before the issue was addressed by the IMO in February.

The International Association of Classification Societies (Iacs), the International Bunker Industry Association (Ibia), the Oil Companies International Marine Forum (OCIMF) and the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science & Technology IMarEST did not immediately respond to CHN’s requests.

Prior said the response needed to focus on the Arctic and called for “immediate measures” to require ships in the Arctic – and eventually everywhere else in the world – to switch to higher-quality distillates fuels, which have lower sulphur levels and emit less black carbon.

More than half of all ships in the Arctic are already using distillates fuel, Prior said. “This is not an impossible ask and could happen very quickly. This issue needs to be taken serious by the IMO.”

Lucy Gilliam, a shipping campaigner at the NGO Transport & Environment, described the blunder “a failure of [the IMO’s] regulatory process”.

Gilliam called for countries parties to the IMO, such as the EU, to demand urgent action at the February meeting.

The shipping sector accounts for about 3% of global emissions annually. In 2018, countries parties to the IMO agreed to cut the sector’s emissions by 50% by 2050.

The post IMO under pressure to regulate new ship fuels over Arctic warming appeared first on Climate Home News.

A draft action plan last week indicated the International Maritime Organization (IMO) would take decisions on new carbon-cutting measures before 2023. An amended version, to be adopted by the environment committee this week, leaves open the possibility to merely “consider” them.

Countries including France, Ireland and the Solomon Islands promoted measures such as speed restrictions to deliver quick fuel and emissions savings. But others like Brazil, Chile and Saudi Arabia expressed concerns about the economic impacts on trade, particularly in fresh produce.

Instead, these countries argued near-term action should be limited to strengthening existing regulations on ship design efficiency.

Nishatabbas Rehmatula, a senior researcher at UCL Energy Institute, told Climate Home News that this would achieve little in terms of emissions reductions, “whereas other short-term measures such as operational efficiency standards and speed reduction have a chance to reduce emissions before 2023, if implemented in time”.

The initial strategy

The goal is to reduce maritime emissions at least 50% by 2050, from 2008 levels, while pursuing full decarbonisation in line with the Paris Agreement. The strategy also sets a target to reduce CO2 emissions relative to each tonne of cargo shipped at least 40% by 2030 and pursue efforts towards 70% by 2050, and plans to review the IMO’s energy efficiency design rules with an eye to strengthening them.

The debate came weeks after a landmark report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned early action was essential to hold global warming to 1.5C. That was the tougher limit in the Paris Agreement, demanded by countries on the front line of climate impacts.

International shipping accounts for 2-3% of global greenhouse gas emissions and demand for maritime trade is expected to grow.

“Energy efficiency measures, market-based measures, and zero carbon fuels all need to be pursued immediately,” said Morgan Wairiu, a delegate from the Solomon Islands, which is vulnerable to sea level rise.

“Energy efficiency measures can be considered and adopted, but they’re totally inadequate for staying below the 1.5 degrees maximum. We need more than efficiency measures. We need real transformational efforts; the IMO needs to immediately initiate R&D in addressing marine propulsion, alternative low carbon and zero carbon fuels and other innovative technologies in shipping.”

Delegates “paid due lip service” to the IPCC’s message, said Bill Hemmings, campaigner at Brussels-based think-tank Transport & Environment, but many still sought to weaken ambition.

“The danger – perhaps not unexpected – is that the IMO is falling victim to those states determined to see delay. The IPCC calls clearly for emissions to fall within the next 10 years. In that respect the news from the IMO so far this week is disappointing.”

The IMO is inviting concrete proposals on potential carbon-cutting policies and commissioning a fourth study of the sector’s emissions.

Under IMO rules, journalists are not allowed to quote comments made in plenary debates without the negotiator’s express permission. Several national delegates approached by Climate Home News declined the opportunity to explain their positions.

Transparency International and Influence Map have argued a lack of accountability is holding back climate action at the IMO.

Republish this article

The post UN shipping body drags heels on carbon-cutting measures appeared first on Climate Home News.

In the coming two weeks 173 states at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) will discuss what a greenhouse gas reduction plan for shipping first proposed back in 1997 could look like.

The idea is that an initial strategy including a long term target is agreed in 2018, followed by a more comprehensive set of measures and policies due by 2023.

Maritime carbon emissions are estimated to be 2-3% of the global total, but left unchecked that could spiral 250% by mid century, according to a 2014 study by the IMO.

So what do we know about this sector  –  which carries around 80% of global trade?

Decarbonisation by 2035 is possible

So says the OECD in a report published in March 2018. What’s more, it’s achievable using current technologies, a finding that will surprise anyone used to listening to shipping executives moaning that none of this is possible before someone invents a magic fuel.

But some actions are needed now, says OECD. These include

– A clear, ambitious emissions-reduction target to drive decarbonisation from IMO
– More research into zero carbon tech, more transparency from shipping lines on carbon footprints
– A carbon price for global shipping, leaving it to the market to allocate resources optimally
– Ports could differentiate fees based on environmental criteria
– Governments could also work with banks to incentivise green shipping

There’s a warning buried in the report too. Doing nothing means the sector will be emitting the equivalent to well over 200 coal power plants by 2035.

#Aviation and #shipping have increased rapidly over past years, both globally and in Europe. By 2050, aviation & shipping are anticipated to contribute to almost 40% of global CO2 emissions unless further mitigation actions are taken. More: https://t.co/HlUhxEPKcM #climate pic.twitter.com/YBWwJvA3Xu

— EU EnvironmentAgency (@EUEnvironment) February 8, 2018

Decarbonisation has broad support

This week 44 countries announced their support for the Tony De Brum declaration on climate and shipping, which calls for an IMO deal this year to “set a level of ambition for the sector that is compatible with that of the Paris Agreement, including a peak on emissions in the short-term and then reducing them to neutrality towards the second half of this century.”

Signatories include the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Mexico, Peru and the Marshall Islands. Opinions differ on the scale of ambition. The Marshalls want complete decarbonisation by 2035, EU member states are suggesting 70–100% by 2050.

Strong words from UK #shipping minister @Nus_Ghani: sector must target GHG deal "in line with the Paris Agreement" – which means net zero in second half of century https://t.co/P33bUcgCgs

— Ed King (@edking_I) March 26, 2018

 Current efforts are not cutting it

The IMO’s current plan is a deal to ensure new ships are 30% more efficient by 2025, but this does little in bending shipping’s GHG curve towards keeping global warming well below 2C. A recent study for the Danish Shipowners Association estimated that the likely impact of this policy is only a 3% reduction in the sector’s total emissions between now and 2050.

And while the 30% figure sounds impressive, it’s lagging well behind the industry’s current performance. At least 60% of container ships, 50% of general cargo ships and 25% of tankers already meet IMO efficiency targets for 2020, as the graphic below from Brussels-based NGO Transport & Environment illustrates.

Shipping pollution is a killer

That’s according to a 2018 study published in the journal Nature.

“Cleaner marine fuels will reduce ship-related premature mortality and morbidity by 34 and 54%, respectively, representing a ~ 2.6% global reduction in PM2.5 cardiovascular and lung cancer deaths and a ~3.6% global reduction in childhood asthma. Despite these reductions, low-sulphur marine fuels will still account for ~250k deaths and ~6.4 M childhood asthma cases annually, and more stringent standards beyond 2020 may provide additional health benefits.”

Big business wields great power

So said analysts at Influence Map, a group that charts corporate lobbying, in a study published last October.

“Despite being responsible for close to 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, the shipping sector remains outside of the UN Paris Agreement on climate. It has achieved this through corporate capture of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the UN body responsible for regulating global shipping.”

The report highlighted the large number of advisers from commodities shipper Vale on Brazil’s delegation. Exxon-Mobil, Saudi Aramco and MSC are other major businesses with significant shipping interests that send officials to take part in IMO talks, frequently as part of national delegations.

Influence Map’s finding prompted an extraordinary response from a senior executive at a major shipping line, who wrote on the online platform Splash 247: “We can feel nothing but contempt and disgust at the prostitutes employed by our racket to try and put one over on the general public.”

For more on the corporate capture of the UN, read this expose on the role of shipping registries — and in particular the US organisation that took control of a Pacific Island’s seat at the UN.

Technology is starting to shift the dial

Change is slow, but it is happening. IKEA and Maersk are among the larger companies to acknowledge climate risk and set targets to clean their business / supply chains. Others such as Hurtigruten — a cruise firm — are working on hybrid ships, while Siemens is pioneering deployment of electric ferries.

According to the OECD, further efficiency improvements are still possible on existing hulls and propellers. Wind (yes — wind!) assistance has huge potential for a large number of ships in the fleet, to tap this free energy source.

Still, while energy demands per ship will therefore be lower, deep sea shipping will still need a renewable fuel given the potential of batteries over long distances are not yet proven.

– Shell [see their 2017 hydrogen case study here], ITM power and Engie are already working on developing hydrogen electrolysers and green hydrogen supply chains.
– Major operators such as Stena and CMB are already pilot these potential fuels and class societies are developing rules — Lloyds Register recently classed the first deep sea hydrogen ship.
– Fuel cells may be the ultimate solution for shipping, and are developing fast in both performance terms and reduced costs as “marine scale” units of many MW’s are developed. They also offer much lower maintenance costs and like batteries pave the way to autonomous deep sea shipping.

Keep an eye on Port Liner, who are building a fleet of 100% electric barges to run between Antwerp, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam — as covered in a recent DW report.

“It simply doesn’t make sense for us to build new ships with diesel engines,” Ton van Meegen, chief executive of Port Liner, a €100 million ($124 million) EU-supported venture, told DW. “Our vessels will be used for decades, and electric motors are clearly where the industry is headed.”

It’s hard for journalists to operate at IMO

Don’t get me wrong  –  the food is nice and we are given water. The press team are friendly people. We’re not shot at or threatened. But the IMO does have weird rules governing how reporters can operate.

So if  –  for instance  –  a small island state happens to say climate change is over-rated and there’s no point in discussing the issue  –  you’re not allowed to report this, unless you get the express permission of the person who said it. Who, in most cases, will say no.

Reporters are allowed to write about outcomes, but not process. In IMO parlance “this specifically precludes reporting of the discussions themselves” which for anyone who has worked at other UN venues is  –  quite simply  – rather unique. And rather defeats the purpose of having media watching proceedings.

 It’ll be harder and expensive for ports to operate in a warming planet

That’s the finding of an HSBC study into the risks Asia’s top ports face from climate change.

“Upgrading Asia-Pacific’s biggest ports to cope with the effects of climate change will cost up to $49 billion, but the bill could be even higher if no action is taken,” Reuters reported.

“ARE’s report — commissioned by international bank HSBC — covered ports in Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, India, South Korea and Malaysia. It put the costs for those ports to adapt to climate change at between $31 billion and $49 billion.

“Japan’s Kitakyushu port faces the highest cost at $4.9 billion, the report said, while five of the region’s 10 largest ports by capacity could see bills of more than $1 billion each.”

Shipping is key to limiting warming to 1.5C

In 2015 countries agreed to try and limit warming to well below 2C and aim for 1.5C  –  so far progress has been limited  –  but what’s clear is that all sectors need to deliver. The 1.5C goal is important for small island states and other low lying countries, as Carbon Brief explains here:

“An extra 0.5C could see global sea levels rise 10cm more by 2100, water shortages in the Mediterranean double and tropical heatwaves last up to a month longer. The difference between 2C and 1.5C is also “likely to be decisive for the future of coral reefs”, with virtually all coral reefs at high risk of bleaching with 2C warming.”

Yet as this chart illustrates, not everyone is on board — least of all Japan and the International Chamber of Shipping. The key over the next two weeks will be — as ever — not what member states and lobby groups say in terms of framing “ambition”, but what they’re prepared to put on the table.

#3 – why claims by @shippingics that it backs ambitious #climate plans are a #loadofoldballs pic.twitter.com/swASNc8d3k

— IMOclimate (@IMOclimate) January 10, 2018

This article was originally published on Medium. Ed King is a consultant working on shipping decarbonisation supported by the European Climate Foundation. He is the former editor of Climate Home News.

The post Will the IMO deliver the climate deal of 2018? appeared first on Climate Home News.

In an op-ed published on the trade press site Splash 24/7 on Thursday, Andrew Craig-Bennett said industry mockery of a report released this week that concluded lobbyists had “captured” talks at the UN International Maritime Organisation (IMO) was misplaced.

On Monday, the NGO Influence Map released a report that exposed the degree to which these shipping registries and industry lobby groups had infiltrated the body intended to regulate them.

While some details in the report were incorrect, said Craig-Bennett, a 41-year veteran of the shipping industry, “it is basically right, and we all know that it is”.

“The IMO was captured by the shipowning interest as soon as the IMCO admitted the FOCs,” he said.

Craig-Bennett is deputy general manager of the UK subsidiary of Chinese government-owned Cosco but stressed to Climate Home that he wrote the article in a personal capacity and not as a representative of his employers.

The UN body was known as the IMCO until 1982. FOCs – flags of convenience – such as Panama or the Marshall Islands, register vessels outside their country of ownership. Registry businesses account for more than half of the world’s merchant fleet and commonly lead national delegations to the IMO.

Registry chief: “We used to send a taxi over to IMO and now we send a bus”

Craig-Bennett said lobbyists used deliberately confusing statistics about shipping emissions – which are roughly equal to the annual emissions of Germany – in order to mislead and delay action on carbon pollution.

“We can feel nothing but contempt and disgust at the prostitutes employed by our racket to try and put one over on the general public,” he said.

The leaders of the Baltic and International Maritime Council (Bimco) and the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), disputed the findings of the study this week, saying they had not tried to derail progress on cutting emissions.

Craig-Bennett said: “Sorry Bimco, sorry ICS, sorry national and regional ship owners organisations, but if you are not influencing the IMO and others, there is no point in paying you, and we can all save a few bucks. What we want you to do is to influence the IMO in a less brain-dead way.”

In a statement, IMO secretary general ​​​Kitack Lim said the makeup of delegations to the IMO was “entirely a matter for the countries themselves”, adding that “countries who wish to include industry technical experts or others may do so”.

Lim said inclusiveness, which also meant listening to NGOs, was “one of IMO’s great strengths”. The “IMO’s efforts to reduce harmful air emissions from ships spans decades”, he said, and would continue this week at the working group meeting.

Without further action, the IMO predicts carbon emissions could grow 50-250% by 2050. Years of debate have resulted in limited restrictions. The EU and Pacific island nations have lobbied for the IMO to set targets for carbon cuts at its next meeting in April, 2018. This and other initiatives are under discussion at the working group meeting. Whatever targets are set, their implementation was pushed back to 2023 at the behest of the ICS, the Influence Map report found.

The tax-free shipping company that took control of a country’s UN mission

The degree of ignorance about climate change within the IMO was highlighted on Wednesday by Belgian climatologist Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, who gave a talk to the body’s working group on greenhouse gas emissions in London this week.

His presentation ran over many of the most basic facts about climate change, addressing common tropes proliferated by sceptics.

“From the feedback I got, it was an eye opener for many [IMO] delegates,” van Ypersele told Climate Home News. When asked what exactly had been surprising for those in the room, he said as far as he knew, they had not known that “CO2 is a stock pollutant, and therefore that zero net emissions are needed to stabilise the CO2 and temperature”. Stock pollutants are long-lasting chemicals that accumulate in the environment over time.

Craig-Bennett said the industry should move fast to adopt new and disruptive technologies. “The only sensible proposal before the IMO is the one coming from the Pacific Islands – including the Marshall Islands – calling for zero emissions by 2035… Seventeen years is long enough to pay down and scrap all existing ships and replace them with something else.”

He also sarcastically noted the IMO’s “infinite wisdom” in not allowing journalists to report on its discussions. Climate Home News’ deputy editor Megan Darby was banned from the IMO for doing just that in 2016.

The post Shipping executive: ‘We have deliberately misled public on climate’ appeared first on Climate Home News.

That is the conclusion of a report by business lobbying watchdog Influence Map on the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The study was released to coincide with a meeting of an IMO working group on greenhouse gases on Monday.

Based on analysis of delegate lists, meeting submissions and outcomes, it finds business interests exert an uncommon degree of influence over decisions. This, campaigners warn, jeopardises the international climate goals adopted in Paris.

“The research proves almost conclusively that the shipping industry has been lobbying aggressively in the UN against climate change regulations,” Ben Youriev, an author of the report, told Climate Home. “They have completely captured policymaking bodies at the IMO.”

Perhaps the most striking discovery is the extent to which business interests infiltrate national delegations. Researchers found 31 out of 100 member states at the last IMO environmental committee meeting brought representatives from business.

Cosco and Vale are regular advisers to China and Brazil respectively, with the opportunity to advance their agenda in multiple subcommittees.

“The IMO appears the only UN agency to allow such extensive corporate representation in the policy making process,” the report said.

Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the IMO said: “Nominating people to its delegation is an internal domestic matter for each member state. The IMO Secretariat is not involved in those decisions.”

Special report: The tax-free shipping company that took control of a country’s UN mission

Five national delegations were led by commercial flag registries, not government officials. As Climate Home has previously reported, the Marshall Islands former foreign minister Tony de Brum faced resistance from registry figures when he sought to claim his seat at the forum. While the low-lying Pacific island state is known for advocating ambitious climate action, its ship registry – the second largest in the world – is based in Virginia, US and has little accountability to the country’s elected leaders.

Registry president Bill Gallagher said in an interview with Maritime Reporter in July: “We used to send a taxi over to IMO and now we send a bus. And that’s true. I mean, we really spend a lot of money as a flag state, sending the right people to IMO. Our regulatory guys say, ‘If you’re not in the working groups, you’re not impacting what happened’. Where you really make a difference is at the working groups. So we’re not only just sending a couple guys to sit in a chair; we actually are very active in the working groups.”

On top of these discreet channels of influence, the industry is visibly represented through trade associations like the International Chamber of Shipping, which have official observer status. Representing 80% of the world’s merchant fleet, the ICS brought a bigger team to the last environmental committee meeting than 85% of national delegations.

As an example of its sway, Influence Map points to last October’s environment meeting, when 13 countries explicitly endorsed the ICS proposal. In the end, member states adopted a timetable for setting climate targets very similar to that suggested by industry, deferring implementation of greenhouse gas curbs to 2023 at the earliest.

Shipping Watch reports that industry voices are also expected to prevail at this week’s meeting, occupying a middle ground between ambitious European states and more conservative emerging economies.

ICS, along with Bimco, Intertanko and Intercargo, are proposing an “aspirational” target to cap the sector’s emissions at 2008 levels (the pre-financial crash peak) and halve its carbon intensity by 2050. They oppose absolute emissions cuts, on the basis this could constrain growth in world trade.

Climate advocates say that is not nearly enough to align with the Paris Agreement goal to hold global warming “well below 2C”.

Shipping has a carbon footprint roughly the size of Germany. Without intervention, the IMO’s own research predicts that to grow 50-250% by 2050.

The latest available data, published by the International Council on Clean Transportation last week, showed emissions increasing 2.4% between 2013 and 2015. Fuel efficiency improved for many ship classes over the period, but the gains were outweighed by increased demand.

Christiana Figueres, former UN climate chief and founder of Mission 2020, urged the sector to up its game. “The Paris Agreement committed the world to ambitious action on climate change, yet the shipping industry is not up to speed,” she said in a statement. “It’s time to raise the anchor and seize the opportunity between now and 2020 to align with other industries and chart the course to well below 2C pathway”.

Report: Gas tanker crosses thawing Arctic without icebreaker for first time

Influence Map director Dylan Tanner told Climate Home he hoped the report would inspire progressive businesses and investors to intervene.

“We need the silent majority of companies to step up and address the difficult issues,” he said. “Investors hate the lack of transparency and they hate not having risks disclosed to them… that is a big target audience, for them to address this not just with ship owners but the shipping value chain as a whole.”

The report praised AP Moller-Maersk as one of the only shipping companies to have a transparent – and relatively ambitious – position on climate policy. Some Scandinavian shipowners associations also support stronger action.

Johannah Christensen of Global Maritime Forum, a Copenhagen-based body promoting collaboration on disruptive trends for the industry, said: “A low-carbon future is achievable if private and public stakeholders work together and must necessarily be based on facts and improved information transparency.”

Investors in the shipping sector may be failing in their fiduciary duties if they ignore “such damning evidence” of lobbying to obstruct climate action, said Alice Garton of environmental law firm Client Earth.

“These findings reveal an industry so resistant to climate progress that it has negotiated a sector-wide free pass on emissions. But no business is exempt from the effects of climate change and it’s time for these firms to be held to account.”

The post UN shipping climate talks ‘captured’ by industry lobbyists appeared first on Climate Home News.

International shipping could be responsible for nearly a fifth of the world’s carbon emissions by 2050. If the IMO, the branch of the UN that regulates international shipping, failed to set ambitious climate targets, it would be disastrous for low-lying islands like his own, de Brum would say.

But when he walked in to the IMO plenary, de Brum found strangers sitting in his country’s place. “I was talking about a Goldilocks situation,” he told Climate Home two years later on the verandah of his bungalow on the Marshallese capital atoll Majuro, a few feet from the lagoon. “We had some difficulty convincing the people who were sitting in our seats, literally, that we were the representatives of the Marshall Islands.”

The people de Brum found representing the Marshall Islands were from International Registries Inc. (IRI), a private shipping register headquartered in Reston, Virginia. According to its website, the company provides access to the Marshall Islands flag and a “zero tax jurisdiction that statutorily exempts non-resident domestic corporations from taxation on their income and assets”.

Thanks to IRI, the Marshall Islands boasts the second largest fleet of ships in the world and the world’s largest fleet of oil tankers. The company attracts ship owners with the promise of zero corporation tax and no seafarer nationality requirements – the latter allows them to skirt organised labour. The 45,000 offshore companies registered with IRI also benefit from corporate anonymity.

De Brum, now climate change ambassador for the Marshall Islands, said he was “appalled” by IRI’s suspicious response to his arrival at the IMO.

He did eventually deliver his message. But two years on, the shipping industry remains out of step with the rest of the world on climate change. In 20 years, the IMO has made just one intervention to address carbon emissions: an efficiency index which the International Energy Agency said would only improve efficiency by 1% between 2015 and 2025. A new study by CE Delft found the efficiency of new ships actually got worse in 2016.

Climate Weekly: Sign up for your essential climate news update

De Brum’s intervention revealed a struggle between the world’s second largest shipping registry and its flag state over who the IMO really serves – sovereign states or the shipping industry? The issue of climate change has starkly exposed the divergent interests of the islands and the registry. It also highlights deep cultural issues within the IMO – a UN body where delegations are invariably stacked with industry representatives and national interests are oddly peripheral.

This week, that contest entered a new phase as transport minister Mike Halferty arrived at the IMO’s annual meeting, the first time a Marshallese minister has attended since de Brum’s jarring experience. The IMO has committed to publishing an interim climate plan by 2018 and Halferty wants to use the meeting to push for deep cuts. “The IMO must this week send a very clear signal that it will take serious and ambitious climate action and that it will play its full part in delivering the goals of the Paris Agreement,” he said in a statement.

Carbon emissions from shipping aren’t included in national governments’ contributions under the Paris climate agreement. Instead, they are regulated by the IMO. Almost 80% of the world fleet is registered to ‘open registries’ – many of them run by private companies. Because IMO treaties only come into force on the basis when a certain proportion of the world fleet has backed them, the international law made at the IMO stands or falls on the support of companies like IRI.

“Some of the most vulnerable small island states [are represented] by the private companies running their open ship registries, with positions taken at IMO often at odds with their national interest and their positions in the wider climate negotiations,” said John Maggs of the Clean Shipping Coalition, an NGO.

Offshore carbon: why a climate deal for shipping is sinking

According to participants lists seen by Climate Home, the Marshall Islands’ Pacific neighbours in Palau are also represented at the IMO by a private registry; and both Vanuatu and the Marshall Islands have previously attended meetings with oil industry advisors.

According to Maggs, this system “puts a disproportionate influence in the hands of the shipping industry, and is one of the reasons why, 20 years after [the Kyoto climate protocol], we are only now taking the issue of climate change seriously at IMO”.

A spokesman from the IMO said: “Member states decide themselves who represents them at IMO meetings and speaks on their behalf. It is entirely down to the member states. All member states have equal status and it is one state one vote.”

For the Marshall Islands, it is an invidious position; trapped between rising seas and a sense of dependence on one of their few economic staples. There are real fears the registry could simply move to another, more pliant country.

Rather than de-registering the country’s huge tanker fleet, which could easily move to another tax-free register, de Brum’s vision had been a reformed register that would incentivise green shipping, as well as use its significant tonnage to influence the stagnated debates on shipping emissions at the IMO.

A girl looks over a sea wall in Majuro, Marshall Islands, which is just 6 ft above sea level. Spring tides inundate the islands with saltwater, making agricultural land infertile (Photo: Margot Gibbs)

Instead, IRI has attempted to dissuade Marshallese ministers from delivering their message at the IMO. High-level government sources told Climate Home registry officials advised the government that the 2016 IMO meeting was “technical” and not suitable for ministerial attendance. Ministers had been planning to be there, but at the last minute the visit was called off. On this and other questions, the IRI did not respond to a request for comment.

The Marshallese are often left in the dark over IRI’s business activities. Climate Home shows de Brum a flyer for a recent Arctic shipping conference that bears the IRI’s insignia. Did he know that IRI were touting the new opportunities afforded by melting ice caps? After pausing for a few moments, eyebrows raised, he responds: “Nothing surprises me anymore about what IRI does… what would surprise me is if the government had a briefing on it and if they understood what was going on”.

“Not many government officials are aware of IMO issues,” said minister-in-assistance to the president Mattlan Zackhras. Adding the new administration had decided to “to take a more direct leading role on climate”, which means that may be changing.

Pacific islanders: Shipping must comply with Paris climate goals

A drive up and down the Majuro’s single, potholed road is a good place to begin understanding how a country lost control of its own UN mission. All along it are well-advertised donations from foreign governments: each of the solar streetlights is “a gift from ROC Taiwan” and the once brightly painted bus shelters are a gift from the nation’s former colonial ruler, Japan. Civil servants ride down the pancake-flat island in 4 x 4 pickup trucks donated by the European Union. For a government otherwise deeply dependent on grant aid, dependable, self-generated income is precious.

A “capping agreement” signed in 2009 and obtained by Climate Home gives the Marshall Islands a set fee of $5m a year (although the 2016 budget cited $6.5m from the ship registry). Senior officials privately admit their stance towards the registry has been affected by fears they could jeopardise this income. The amount is tiny relative to the value of the ships operating under the flag. But it makes up about 10% of the islands’ non-aid revenue.

“When you come from a country whose budget barely survives each budget situation – every penny matters,” said de Brum.

A 40-minute drive from the town along Majuro’s narrow isthmus is a sprawling building with tinted windows. The main office of IRI’s Marshallese subsidiary, the Trust Company of the Marshall Islands’ (TCMI), serves as a library for 45,000 paper companies.

Senators and former ministers describe TCMI as “deeply secretive”. Few people in Majuro even know the Trust Company exists. The taxi driver who takes this reporter there, who has lived in Majuro for more than thirty years, thinks the Trust Company is an agency for American and Japanese tourists. The Trust Company’s other office, and the one nominally in charge of the ship register, is at the other end of the island, squashed between a tattoo parlour and a local café where old men play board games in the midday heat.

TCMI claims to employ 20 people in Majuro, but cabinet ministers laugh at this: maybe if they are counting the garden staff, the cleaners, they suggest. It is generally understood just three Marshallese are employed by the register. James Myazoe deals with the corporate registry, and his cousins, Baron and Joseph Bigler, deal with the maritime side of the business.

The real nerve centre of IRI is more than 11,300 kilometres east of Majuro, in the leafy suburbs outside Washington DC, and in its 27 offices in the world’s shipping and financial centres. It is from here that the company has chipped away at the benefits the islands receive from their association with the registry as well as the transparency the government can command.

Graveyards on the Majuro seafront have been washed into the sea during the spring tides (Photo: Margot Gibbs)

Under a 1990 deal, the Marshall Islands government was entitled to 75% of the profits from the register. But as the business grew, this was watered down to a maximum 40% of revenue 1995 and then in 2009 the government agreed a $5m limit. According to documents submitted to the US justice department, the Liberian International Ship and Corporate Register – just down the road from IRI’s Virginia offices, built on the same model and roughly the same size – provides the Liberian government around $20m – four times what the Marshall Islands get from IRI.

The deal will be up for renegotiation in 2018. If IRI’s revenues, which it does not disclose, were the same as the Liberian registry, the government’s deal in 2009 may have cost the national budget roughly $30m each year. (Although financial records seen by Climate Home suggest this may be an overstatement.) Panama’s registry, which is government owned, provides around $90m to the country’s annual budget.

Copies of contracts between the government and the Trust Company seen by Climate Home show how the government also forfeited critical oversight rights. The original contract, signed in October 1990, gave the auditor general the right to full audited accounts. But in an amended agreement, signed in 1995, these audit rights are limited “to the records and information of the Trust Company relating to the gross revenues from the Programmes”. Neither of these agreements has been scrutinised by the Nitijela, the Marshall Islands parliament, said speaker Kenneth Kedi.

The 1990 agreement also gives the Trust Company the authority to take representatives to international conferences such as the IMO, but compels TCMI to keep the government informed of these meetings. Something it has failed to do, according to Zackhras, although he suggests past governments had failed to press the company to fulfil the obligation.

The secrecy around these finances has focused attention on the register. But according to Kedi, attempts by senators and the public accounts committee to scrutinise IRI’s accounts, or the contract between the government and the register, have failed; the IRI citing commercial confidentiality. Again, the IRI did not respond to a request to comment on this.

The office for the Maritime Administrator in Majuro, which hosts the world’s second largest fleet of ships, sits between a tattoo parlour and a local café (Photo: Margot Gibbs)

“Because they give the Marshall Islands a few million bucks – it keeps everyone fine and happy,” one senator tells me. “But a lot of the new senators coming in are asking the same questions that some of us are asking.”

Zackhras describes the past absence of any government representation at the IMO as “awkward”, but says the Trust Company is now working more willingly with the government.

That is showing at the IMO this week, where Halferty has been joined by ministers from other Pacific countries. Pacific states have formed a “high ambition coalition” with European nations calling for immediate peaking of ship emissions, as well as for an overall cap for the sector, consistent with the Paris agreement.

Signs at the IMO point to a thawing of relations, with Marshallese government negotiators occupying seats alongside IRI employees and advocating a strong stance on climate change. The Clean Shipping Coalition’s Maggs said Pacific island states were “now largely represented by government officials and providing some much needed climate leadership at IMO”.

Marshall Islands president Hilda Heine declined to be interviewed for this article or respond to questions about the contracts between the government and IRI. A spokesman from the foreign office said: “The maritime sector is crucial to the economic well-being of the Marshall Islands… But such concerns must not be used by any country as an excuse to avoid the ambitious climate action necessary to ensure our survival.”

Pacific States have been described as the world’s conscience when it comes to climate talks. They have done little to cause the global warming, rising sea-levels and ocean acidification which could destroy them. The UN has provided a rare, equalising forum. “We are fighting basically for survival – for the right to exist,” says de Brum. “In the UN everyone’s the same: I had one vote and [former US secretary of state] John Kerry had one vote. It was based on that kind of respect and recognition that we were able to pull off one of the most exciting agreements in mankind.”

This is what the Marshall Islands has signed away at the IMO – and what it is fighting to get back before it’s too late.

Travel costs for the research of this article were partly funded by the European Climate Foundation. The European Climate Foundation also contributes funding to Climate Home.

The post The tax-free shipping company that took control of a country’s UN mission appeared first on Climate Home News.

So for me the UN climate and shipping talks taking place in London this week are not just about the technical details.

They’re personal. My people are relying on me to deliver.

Two years ago my friend and former Marshall Islands foreign minister Tony de Brum travelled to London on a mission.

He wanted the world’s shipping industry to recognise it had a contribution to make to fighting an enemy we Pacific Islanders know all too well: climate change.

He wanted this vast sector that keeps the global economy ticking over to do its fair share in our common fight. No more, no less.

And he wanted – in his words – to ensure he left a world where his children and grandchildren could still live in their ancestral home on Majuro, and not face eviction due to rising sea levels.

Tony isn’t with us in London this week, as UN negotiations to deliver a climate deal for shipping start at the International Maritime Organisation, but he’ll be there in spirit.

Climate Weekly: Sign up for your essential climate news update

He has passed the baton to a new generation of Pacific ministers and we are determined to fulfil his desire of ensuring everyone pulls their weight on this – the most existential of issues.

Pacific leaders have consistently, via the 2015 Suva Declaration and in many international fora, pointed to the grave and in some cases existential threat faced by small island states if global warming is not kept below 1.5C.

Shipping has a key role to play here. Research commissioned by the UN shows that without action, maritime emissions could multiply 50-250% by 2050, blowing the 1.5C goal sky high.

If that does happen, the atoll and low lying small island developing states (SIDS) are in the front line and will be impacted first and hardest.

These SIDS are also arguably the most dependent on maritime transport, not only for economic development but in many cases for food, fuel and basic necessities of life.

Furthermore, these SIDS already face the highest maritime transport costs per capita in the world with the most vulnerable supply lines.

All studies to date indicate that any effects on transport cost arising from shipping adopting a decarbonisation pathway will likely be disproportionately felt in such states.

Nevertheless we can and we must clean up a sector responsible for 2-3% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

In the spirit of the Paris High Ambition Coalition, the Solomon Islands, Marshall Islands and fellow Pacific brothers and sisters are joining forces with France, Germany and other EU member states in London this week to call for shipping to finally take climate change seriously.

We request that the level of ambition at the IMO should be high, in line with shipping agreeing to a reduction in its emissions based on a global target that keep global warming within no more than 1.5C.

It is further requested that this level of ambition be confirmed in the initial strategy to be agreed in 2018. This would send a strong signal and meaningful contribution to ongoing UN climate talks.

The sooner the shipping industry openly acknowledges the decarbonisation pathway needed, the sooner investment decisions and infrastructure developments can be aligned.

This is crucially important for a sector which has long-lasting assets (ships and ports) which risk becoming stranded assets as a consequence of future GHG mitigation policy – and with potential for severe negative consequences on the shipowners, flag registries and other industry actors.

A high level of ambition implies early agreement to a target for the shipping sector, setting the earliest possible date for peaking global shipping emissions and agreeing on the trajectory toward decarbonisation of the sector.

A high level of ambition will also reiterate the message to the world – and the US president in particular – that the UN can still deliver on humanity’s most pressing problem.

In 2015, nearly 200 countries approved the Paris Agreement. In 2017, the 172 members of IMO have the opportunity to underline their commitment to Paris. The world is watching, and waiting.

Moses Kouni Mose is Solomon Islands Ambassador to the European Union

The post Pacific islanders: Shipping must comply with Paris climate goals appeared first on Climate Home News.

On closer examination it’s more a plan to have more plans, but at least sets a few deadlines: 2018 for an initial carbon cutting strategy and 2023 for the final one.

IMO envoys said they are committed to meeting the aspirations of the Paris climate agreement. Still, with the carbon budget to limit warming to 1.5C set to run out in 2021, 2023 seems a little late to release a plan.

Shipping accounts for nearly 3% of global greenhouse emissions, but aside from what experts say are fairly loose energy efficiency regulations, the sector’s current carbon limits are, well, limited.

Below Climate Home offers some observations from last week’s talks.

1- Is it time for some climate reality?

The climate deal among the 171 members of the IMO was hard-fought, with many countries and influential industry lobbies against taking a tougher line against emissions.

But the world looks to the UN for leadership and honesty. What is the scientific basis for the IMO saying Friday’s agreement was “good news for the environment”, as it claimed on Twitter?

#MEPC70 ends with another good news story for the #environment as IMO agrees #ghg roadmap https://t.co/8tu5TMCG13 #carbon #emissions @UNFCCC pic.twitter.com/SYPuHLmjvz

— IMO (@IMOHQ) October 28, 2016

Ban Ki-moon’s statement was notably less ebullient, focusing on the shipping sector’s growing emissions gap.

“Welcoming these important steps, the Secretary-General calls for urgent and ambitious action to limit the greenhouse gas emissions from global shipping [which] are projected to rise significantly given the critical role that shipping plays in the global economy,” he said.

2- Efficiency should be an urgent priority

Climate and shipping was first brought up at the IMO in 1998. 13 years later it managed to agree on some efficiency regulations. Despite industry claims it has become over 10% more efficient, green groups reckon these need to be ratcheted up, but this week a decision at the IMO was postponed till 2018.

“It beggars belief that the IMO should abandon plans to increase the stringency of design standards that are being easily met and exceeded years ahead of schedule’” says John Maggs, president of the Clean Shipping Coalition.

As a result of Friday’s decision on a climate plan, countries will start discussing what a potential target or cap could look like from 2017. The IMO won’t start recording emissions data from ships until 2019 and no decision will be taken until the organisation has three years worth of data: 2023.

3-  Has anyone at the IMO read the Paris climate deal?

Countries agreed they will publish an initial strategy on shipping emissions by 2018, the year the UN undertakes a “global stocktake” on climate policies and ambitions. But it will not be binding and is subject to change in 2023 once sufficient levels of data have been supplied.

There is no mention of the 1.5C or 2C temperature targets in the IMO climate paper. However there is an idea that it should undertake GHG studies every five years from 2020, which could fit into the UN climate body’s plans for regular reviews over the same period.

4- GHG data is important, but there are pre-2020 steps that are possible

“The data collection system will equip IMO with concrete data to help it make the right decisions, as well as enhancing its credentials as the best placed and competent forum for regulating international shipping,” says IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim.

Countries have agreed to discuss what a climate target could look like but any decisions will have to wait till GHG data has been collected. On efficiency there is a provision for a 2018 review, which left Bill Hemmings, shipping director at T&E, apopletic.

“Nearly 20 years after being tasked with tackling climate change impacts from shipping, the IMO has enacted only one measure so far, the EEDI, and for new ships only. Yet it now stands in disarray. Improving ship efficiency is a no brainer and a classic example of a ‘win-win’, but apparently the IMO prefers open-ended reviews to concrete action.”

In an interview with Climate Home, Ellen Burack, director general of environmental policy at Transport Canada, offered a more optimistic take.

“We will have an initial strategy by 2018… integrating pieces like the  three-step process [data collection, technical examination, decisions], energy efficiency and any progress we can make on black carbon. All these pieces are relevant. We also have the opportunity to start thinking about additional measures beyond that,” she said.

5- We need clarity on the risks, opportunities from GHG targets on development, growth

Major emerging economies are clearly worried that tougher climate targets could impinge on their economic growth: that was the essence of a submission to the IMO from China, India and Brazil before this week’s talks.

“As long as world trade is growing, shipping will grow too,” their national representatives said in a document submitted to the IMO. “This responsive characteristic of shipping makes it impossible to determine its peak emissions in the same way that a country could do.”

Some small island states are also worried, judging by the IMO decision text. They want the strategy to “address impacts of further measures to reduce GHG emissions from ships in specific categories of countries such as developing states, SIDS and LDCs”.

It seems sensible, but chew on this: over half the global shipping fleet is registered in developing countries including Liberia, Panama, the Marshall Islands and the Bahamas.

And does it make any sense for small island states to try and slow a deal to cut shipping pollution? Former Marshall Islands foreign minister Tony De Brum told the IMO his country was behind tougher action in 2015.

6- Industry’s role at IMO talks is not (necessarily) conducive to tougher goals

In contrast to other UN environmental forums, shipping industry groups wield significant influence at the IMO (a full list of these groups and NGOs who contribute to the negotiations can be found here).

Bodies such as the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) and a host of officials representing the tanker, cargo and ferry industries frequently make interventions during plenary sessions.

In a statement on Monday ICS secretary general, Peter Hinchliffe described the latest decision on a roadmap as a “significant decision” and criticised environmental NGOs (who can also participate in the talks) for branding it a failure.

“Unfounded criticism of the consensus that governments have achieved, in very difficult political circumstances, serves to polarise the IMO debate, making the support of developing nations for additional global measures even more complicated to achieve,” he said.

ICS members, which represent over 80% of the world merchant fleet, are working on what an initial IMO CO2 reduction commitment in 2018 might entail, the statement added.

Canada’s Burack compares the situation to a recent agreement on airplane emissions at the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), which was strongly supported by the main industry group IATA.

“Having talked to some industry groups here, some are of view something needs to be done and some are not, and so part of our work needs to be creating a more homogenous view within the industry,” she said.

7- Do we need some honesty about the make-up of national delegations?

Reporting rules mean we can’t identify speakers or zone in on specific discussions. Still, it’s well known that representatives from leading shipping registries represent some governments at these talks.

The registries are effectively big businesses: flagging a ship in a particular country can save companies millions in taxes every year.

What’s good for a big business is not necessarily good for its home country, especially if that country is a low lying small island state, for instance.

Here’s Burack again: “It is probably the biggest contribution to why earlier talks were not successful… the standard proponents of ambition are not consistent with the power brokers in the shipping industry.”

8- Restrictive reporting rules should be reassessed

Current regulations effectively give countries and big business carte blanche to say what they want, when they want, with key decision-making bodies safe in the knowledge their comments cannot be reported.

Climate Home understands that it is impossible to expect major policies to be developed in the public glare, hence working groups are closed to journalists.

But when national delegations make plenary interventions or statements that clearly run against the goals of the UN’s Paris Agreement, we would argue it is in the public interest to report that.

Sadly, at the moment we cannot without seeking permission from relevant member states, who are understandably reluctant to have their obstruction made public.

The post Mayday, Mayday: UN’s shipping body needs a climate compass appeared first on Climate Home News.

An initial plan from the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) is expected to be released by 2018, which will feed into a UN-led assessment of global climate policies.

But under proposals submitted in London this week, governments will only finalise the strategy after a three year project to capture ship-level fuel use data, which starts in 2019.

The compromise deal emerged after negotiations that ran to 01.30am on Friday between 45 countries including the US, China, Brazil, India, UK, Panama and the Marshall Islands.

Whiffs of sulphur: UN shipping talks face climate dilemma

Green groups were fiercely critical of the agreement and an associated decision on Friday to delay discussions on tightening energy efficiency standards to 2018.

“It’s a start but there is no urgency here for me… they won’t really make a decision till 2023,” said Simon Walmsley, WWF-UK’s marine manager.

Proposals to ensure all ships record and verify their fuel consumption should be rolled out well before a planned 2019 start date, he added.

“It’s in their interest. If they can measure fuel they can save fuel. It needs to be done faster and it needs to inform the climate change strategy.”

“This can in no way be seen as an adequate response to Paris [climate agreement]… what is urgently needed is a clear sense of the scale of emission reductions to keep warming to safe levels,” said John Maggs, president of the Clean Shipping Coalition.

“Apparently the IMO prefers open-ended reviews to concrete action,” said Bill Hemmings, shipping director at Transport and Environment.

Weekly briefing: Sign up for your essential climate politics update

In a statement the UN body’s chief Kitack Lim said the deal was proof the IMO “continues to lead in delivering on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping.”

The sector is responsible for nearly 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but has historically struggled to deliver a consensus on how to cut carbon pollution. A 2014 IMO study said these could rise 50-250% by 2050.

Media restrictions mean specifics of the negotiations cannot be reported at IMO talks, but a series of submissions ahead of this week’s conference offered a sense of where divisions between countries continue to lie.

The European Union and some small island states want the IMO to define shipping’s “fair share” of climate efforts; leading emerging economies and major flag states think it should focus on energy efficiency and data collection.

In an interview with Climate Home, Ellen Burack, director general of environmental policy at Transport Canada, said the deal was a “good start” given the challenges faced by envoys.

“A number of countries wanted to wait till we started collecting [emissions] data before talking about it [a climate plan],” she said.

Countries will now start work on discussing what various targets or caps could look like, taking advantage of two new week-long sessions in 2017 agreed as part of the new package.

Report: UN shipping chief warns of industry’s rising climate impact

But Burack warned that more work needs to be done to encourage leading business groups and flag states to play a more proactive role in cutting emissions.

The Canadian arrived in London fresh from talks under the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), which delivered a plan supported by business to ensure carbon neutral growth in aviation.

“Having talked to some industry groups here, some are of view something needs to be done and some are not, and so part of our work needs to be creating a more homogenous view within the industry,” she said.

Burack added: “The desire to make progress is clearly broader post Paris than pre Paris, and I think it doesn’t mean there don’t remain differences of views as to how one makes progress but I do think that is the main outcome, that there is a shared sense of desire.”

Earlier this week the IMO announced agreement on a tightening the level of sulphur in marine fuels from 3.5% to 0.5% by 2020, a move that experts say could save thousands of lives every year.

The post UN to deliver climate plan for shipping in 2023 appeared first on Climate Home News.

This week at International Maritime Organisation (IMO) talks in London around 170 countries agreed to tighten limits on toxic sulphur emissions from ships.

The decision means the sulphur content of maritime fuels has to be cut from a current maximum of 3.5% to 0.5% in 2020, and could prevent 200,000 premature deaths, say experts.

It’s a significant step and one that the likes of WWF, Friends of the Earth and Brussels-based NGO Transport and Environment have been pushing for in the past few years.

“This is a landmark decision and we are very pleased that the world has bitten the bullet and is now tackling poisonous sulphuric fuel,” said Bill Hemmings, T&E shipping director.

IMO decision confirming 2020 date to cut ship sulphur emissions applauded by NGOs https://t.co/n5SCMk0Jwa pic.twitter.com/bBSDT0HCyN

— Transport & Environment (@transenv) October 27, 2016

Still, the battle to get this deal has been immense, and raises questions over the capability of the IMO to deliver a similar agreement on climate change, its next major task.

The sulphur fight has lasted a decade. Only now, with the European Union pushing hard for tougher global regulations and China implementing its own standards has a pact seemed likely.

In a closed debate on Thursday, Climate Home understands Russia, Thailand, Iran, Chile, Peru, India, Indonesia and Brazil were arguing 2020 was too early, and should be pushed back to 2025.

That was despite an IMO-commissioned report finding the refinery sector had the capability to deliver sufficient quantities of low sulphur fuel and finding the retrofitting costs for all affected ships manageable.

These, said one of the report’s authors, were around the $30 billion mark. To put that in context, the value of all global trade is $16.5 trillion, nearly 90% of which is carried by sea.

Weekly briefing: Sign up for your essential climate politics update

With the aviation sector now boasting its own – albeit flawed – climate deal, shippers are under pressure to follow.

Yet despite the many vast ships that circle the planet, this is an industry that is still suffering from the financial crisis. Further cuts to profits are not welcome.

Many shipping companies like South Korean giant Hanjin are in trouble; tackling high debt levels and hit by a demand slump since 2008.

Veterans of these talks have long argued that business lobby groups and international shipping registries wield too much power at UN shipping talks, obstructing environmental efforts.

Lobby groups are even allowed seats at the negotiations, making frequent interventions from a row of seats at the back of the main chamber, although IMO reporting restrictions mean their comments cannot be reported.

"This [sulphur ban] was agreed in 2008. We think 12 years is enough time to prepare for it." Thank you @Canada!

— Alex Marshall (@alexmarshall81) October 27, 2016

In an column for Shipping Today this week, shipping expert Olaf Merk argued the industry has long championed small steps as ambitious, especially where the environment is concerned.

“It has taken pride in a 10% emissions reduction between 2007 and 2012, caused by halted trade and slow steaming,” he writes.

Proposals to develop a climate roadmap expected to be agreed this week in London are a mechanism to delay the inevitable, he adds.

“This is not about setting a target for shipping in line with the Paris agreement, this is code for: we will think about a date at which we might say more about how a target could look like if ever we feel we are ready for it.”

Business lobby groups reject claims they have tried to slow progress. “We have a position that we don’t have a position,” says Artemis Kostareli at IPIECA, an oil and gas industry body that participates in discussions.

Lars Robert Pedersen, deputy secretary-general of BIMCO, a shipping body, argues the IMO has already proved it can deliver when set a task.

“There have been legal requirements in place regulating energy efficiency in all ships in the world for seven years, with ever-more stringent requirements,” he says.

He supports proposals for a work programme on shipping and climate, based on a “three-step” approach involving data collection, analysis and a decision sometime in the next few years.

https://twitter.com/JohnKornerupBan/status/791670363302293505

In a small but significant development, on Friday countries are expected to agree on a workplan to explore how shipping can reduce the 2% of world greenhouse gases that it releases annually.

Few expect this to result in a target any time soon. An alliance of European and small island states urging the sector to recognise its “fair share” of global efforts is opposed by China, India and Brazil.

Meanwhile, unusually tight reporting restrictions imposed by the IMO means little scrutiny is imposed on individuals or countries in this venue.

An email sent to reporters this week stressed the rule that “media reports accurately the outcome of discussions”, adding this “specifically precludes reporting of the discussions themselves”.

Reporters must ask permission from envoys to use their plenary statements, a marked contrast to UN climate, biodiversity or environmental talks.

If a journalist breaks those rules and reports quotes from the main plenary – however accurately and however great the public interest – you get a ban, as this website knows to its cost.

Yet few envoys seem happy to be quoted. Only three of the 15 delegations approached by Climate Home this week agreed: the Solomon Islands, Panama and Canada.

Two diplomats objected strongly to requests, apparently offended their national positions on climate change and shipping should be public knowledge.

The result is IMO conferences usually appear to end in unity, with the threat of a ban from negotiations encouraging the media to stay in line and report another week of slow – but steady – progress.

The post Whiffs of sulphur: UN shipping talks face climate dilemma appeared first on Climate Home News.

Officials from nearly 40 governments made statements through Tuesday afternoon calling for the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to take a lead in slashing the sector’s carbon pollution, but offered little sense of consensus.

One envoy from a small island state invoked the spirit of former Marshall Islands foreign minister Tony De Brum, who told the IMO in 2015 that “time was not on its side” in its race to cut emissions.

“These words must be remembered,” said Ambassador Moses Kouni Mose of the Solomon Islands, who told a hushed plenary session that De Brum – who played a critical role in delivering the Paris climate deal – had recently been taken ill.

All countries appear to agree that a three-step process signed off in 2015 involving data collection, data analysis and further decision-making is a basis for further work.

While there was consensus on the need for the sector to clean up its act, there remain significant divergences on the pace and focus of carbon reductions.

“We cannot be complacent as it is clear more needs to be done… we must consider not just what is possible now but what is possible in the future,” said Ellen Burack, director general of Environmental Policy at Transport Canada.

UN shipping chief warns of industry’s rising climate impact: https://t.co/MtGIjfcR9P pic.twitter.com/nNYLQgHR4o

— Climate Home News (@ClimateHome) October 24, 2016

In a paper submitted ahead of these talks a coalition of European, African and small island states including the Marshall Islands and Solomon Islands urged countries to define the sector’s ‘fair share’ of global carbon cuts.

“The growth in demand in shipping and global action to cut emissions means further action is required,” said one official from a developed country during an afternoon debate at the talks.

In a separate submission, major emerging economies including Brazil, India and China reiterated their position that energy efficiency and collection of emissions data should be the focus of the IMO’s efforts.

“The Paris Agreement does not contain any reference or framework for a ‘fair share’ by parties, so great care would be needed to do this for shipping,” said an official from an emerging economy during discussions.

Private talks are expected to continue through the week in a separate “working group”, although afternoon discussions indicated key differences are political rather than technical.

Shipping accounts for over 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but was not mandated to make any cuts under the Paris Agreement, which delegated responsibility to the IMO.

IMO talks are held under reporting rules that that do not automatically allow specific nations to be identified

The post UN faces deadlock over shipping climate deal plans appeared first on Climate Home News.

Fresh from delivering a UN aviation emissions cutting pact in Montreal earlier in October, Violeta Bulc said the maritime sector was next on her list.

“I believe the time is right… I believe everyone feels it’s time to contribute, realising it’s not somebody else’s backyard but our own,” the commissioner said.

“The momentum is right but we need to be realistic and set realistic goals, for that we need good governance, I hope by 2050 we will find solutions for zero [emissions] growth from transport,” she added.

Weekly briefing: Sign up for your essential climate politics update

Talks on carbon cutting measures for ships kick off on Tuesday at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), with governments apparently split on how to clean up the sector.

In 2014, shipping accounted for just over 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon pollution levels from the industry’s freight and leisure divisions are projected to rise 50-250% by 2050, said an IMO study.

As Climate Home reported earlier this year, the EU, France, Germany, Morocco and Marshall Islands are among those pushing for the IMO to contribute its fair share of global carbon cuts.

China, India and Brazil registered their opposition to the plans in a proposal sent to the UN in September, arguing a cap on emissions would be “fundamentally unfit” for the sector.

“As long as world trade is growing, shipping will grow too,” the major emerging economies argued.

Report: UN shipping chief warns of industry’s rising climate impact

Under the aviation emissions deal some routes to and from developing economies are exempted from carbon limits, allowing poorer countries space to grow their domestic industries and capacity.

One industry expert at the IMO talks told Climate Home this is unlikely to work in the shipping sector, given vessels frequently stop at a variety of ports making it harder to pinpoint exactly where a voyage starts and ends.

Meanwhile the EU is steaming ahead, with a regulation adopted in 2015 mandating large vessels visiting European ports to start recording their CO2 emissions. By 2019, Brussels requires this data to be sent to the Commission.

The unilateral move has sparked concern among international parties, but Bulc insisted the EU was committed to a global pact with widespread support.

“To have a deal you can’t leave anyone behind,” she said. “The important lesson from ICAO was that no country was left behind, and I’m happy we could do it in aviation.

“The EU wants a pathway to a CO2 agreement in 2018 – and the major registries [Liberia, Panama, Marshall Islands] are important.”

The post EU focused on shipping climate deal by 2018 appeared first on Climate Home News.

Initiatives to clean up the maritime sector include recently introduced design efficiency standards for new builds and a framework to record ship-level fuel use data.

Kitack Lim, secretary general of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), indicated tougher policies would likely be needed as the industry expands.

“What measures do not address is the growth in demand for shipping,” he said, citing a 2014 IMO study which forecasts substantial industry growth.

“Like any industry, shipping responds to demand of work, and how it responds to demand is the real challenge.”

Report: Emerging economies don’t want to talk about shipping emissions

The sector accounted for 2.2% of global emissions in 2014, but CO2 emissions could rise 50-250% depending on economic growth and fuel developments, the study found.

Envoys from over 170 countries are expected to finalise rules for collecting more accurate fuel and emissions data this week. That is the first stage of a process that could ultimately – in five years or more – lead to regulations on existing ships.

A coalition of European, island and African states is calling for more urgent action to bring shipping in line with the climate ambition of the Paris Agreement. Major emerging economies are resistant, however, while the US is sitting on the fence.

Earlier this month, the UN’s aviation body recently inked its response to Paris – a carbon offsetting scheme for emissions growth after 2020.

The nature of shipping will make a deal at the IMO more complex, Lim said. “Finding an official way to allocate emissions is not straightforward. Ships can move between different flags as easily as sailing between different countries.”

Weekly briefing: Sign up for your essential climate politics update

The post UN shipping chief warns of industry’s rising climate impact appeared first on Climate Home News.

1 – proposals for a new cap on the amount of sulphur emissions
2 – the mandatory collection of ship-level fuel consumption data
3 – a review of energy efficiency targets for shipping
4 – a plan for shipping to tackle its “fair share” of global greenhouse gas emissions

The sulphur deal is important for two main reasons. One: regulating toxic SOx emissions from the shipping and oil sectors would save up to 200,000 lives a year, according to an unpublished IMO report.

Two: an agreement to cut the cap of sulphur content in shipping fuels from 3.5% to 0.5% by 2020 or 2025 would, say analysts at the Transport and Environment NGO, raise fuel prices by up to 30%, heightening the incentive for fuel efficiency.

Battle lines are clear: the EU supports the 2020 deadline, while China is imposing similar domestic rules. The US and major flag states are keeping quite. Brazil, IPIECA and Bimco, the major hydrocarbon and shipping lobby groups, oppose it.

CVF in Addis

The Climate Vulnerable Forum meets in the Ethiopian capital for two days of talks tomorrow.

The 50-strong group of countries includes the hosts, Bangladesh, Rwanda, the Marshall Islands and the Philippines, and was credited with ensuring the Paris climate agreement made reference to limiting warming to 1.5C.

Priorities for the group – which is not an official negotiating bloc at UN talks – includes getting more and better access to climate funds, raising the profile of adaptation and ensuring major emitters meet their promises.

The organisation’s 2016-2018 roadmap can be found here; also worth reading is this op-ed from the Maldives environment minister Thoriq Ibrahim on why adaptation is important for CVF countries.

EU climate action

If in doubt, create a panel. On Friday, the European Commission announced a “High Level Panel on Decarbonisation Pathways”.

It will be led by scientist Hans Joachim Schellnhuber – he of advising-the-Pope fame – who is director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). A major report will be delivered in three years.

“Research and innovation are essential to design technologies and policy trajectories that will allow meeting the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change,” said Carlos Moedas, European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation.

“Our capacity to provide the best available science evidence will be instrumental for future decisions. This is what we expect by the high-level panel that starts working today.”

EU climate inaction

The UK government will decide where and how it will boost airport capacity on Tuesday, transport minister Chris Grayling told the BBC on Sunday.

Climate campaigners say an expanding aviation sector in the UK is incompatible with the country’s carbon-cutting targets. Comedian and columnist David Mitchell agreed in the Observer, questioning why airport expansion was treated as inevitable and climate change barely mentioned.

WMO annual GHG bulletin

It’s out at 9:00 GMT on Monday. It’s not good news. NASA had its say last week…

Must be a coincidence https://t.co/qX6xYrQZpp

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 22, 2016

World Bank CO2

Stat of (last week): 101 countries accounting for 58% of global GHG emissions are considering using carbon pricing, according to the World Bank’s latest survey.

Renewables outlook

On Tuesday, the International Energy Agency launches its latest mid-term outlook into the deployment of renewables around the world. We’ll have it covered.

“The report examines this question in detail and looks at how renewable energy in the power, heat and transportation sectors will evolve over the next five years in the face of lower fossil fuel prices. It explores recent renewable deployment and policy trends across different regions and countries, particularly as costs for wind and solar PV continue to fall, and touches on advanced biofuels use.”

COP22 previews…

Stay tuned this week as we roll out our first batch of analysis ahead of the Marrakech talks, including an exclusive interview with UNFCCC chief Patricia Espinosa.

10 years of Stern

A decade ago the UK Treasury published a review of the economics of climate change, named after its lead author Lord Stern.

The study was to become the seminal piece of work looking at the implications of a warming world on the global economy, and it had a simple conclusion that has underpinned efforts to tackle climate change ever since: the benefits of strong, early action considerably outweigh the costs.

On Friday in London, Stern will be joined by leading UN officials, government wonks and the odd economist to discuss what has changed since 2006 – we’ll bring you a full report.

The post Crib notes: shipping sulphur cuts offer hidden climate bonus appeared first on Climate Home News.

All the same, the shipping industry is anticipating such a move and trying to steer the discussion towards a tax instead of an emissions trading system.

Ian Parry of the International Monetary Fund got a prime slot to talk about the virtues of a carbon levy at a conference in London on Wednesday.

“From a fiscal perspective, you may argue that aviation and maritime sectors are undertaxed,” he said.

A surcharge of US$25 a tonne of CO2 would raise some $25 billion a year from shipping, according to Parry’s analysis, which could be used as climate finance for developing countries.

He expected the effect on greenhouse gas emissions to be initially “modest”, however – less than 5% reduction – on the basis that fuel demand is not very responsive to price signals.

Weekly briefing: Sign up for your essential climate politics update

The International Chamber of Shipping, which organised the conference, is calling on the IMO to define the sector’s contribution to global efforts – before the matter is taken out of its hands.

“There is a focus on the efficiency of ships at the moment and what we are trying to do is to predict what the future will bring,” Peter Hinchliffe, secretary general of the trade body, told Climate Home.

“If there is a requirement by governments to deliver more than simple efficiency can, the only option is some kind of market based mechanism. We believe very firmly that a levy is the only solution suitable to the characteristics of international shipping.”

Any such initiative should wait until the IMO has collected and analysed ship-level data on fuel use, Hinchliffe said – a process he expects to take five or six years.

The IMO previously considered a market based mechanism around the time of the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, but could not reach consensus.

It “has never been off the table,” said the body’s environmental committee chair Arsenio Dominguez. “We suspended the discussion for several reasons… it doesn’t mean we won’t come back.”

Report: Why ship owners see little point in greener vessels

To the consternation of many in the business, the EU may not be prepared to wait that long. A cross-party group in the European Parliament is pushing for shipping to be covered by the EU carbon market next decade.

“If Europe is to honor its commitments through the Paris agreement, all sectors will have to contribute to the transition to a low-carbon society,” said Swedish MEP Jytte Guteland, as reported in the Maritime Executive. “Time is of the essence and the shipping industry has an important role to play in this transition.”

The European Commission is also preparing to bring in more stringent fuel data reporting requirements for ships from next year. It has promised to review the scheme when the IMO finalises its proposals.

The ICS opposes both moves, saying they will distort the market.

John Maggs, head of the Clean Shipping Coalition, defended the right of regions and countries to take unilateral action.

A robust global regulatory regime is the “ideal situation,” he said, adding: “When it is not clear that that is going to follow through, I think it is perfectly reasonable for regions to take additional measures.”

The post Shipping industry prepares for looming climate tax appeared first on Climate Home News.

Castle Bravo blast (US Department of Energy)

By Megan Darby

People say the afterglow of a nuclear bomb blast is like sunset and sunrise at the same time.

Tony de Brum prefers to liken the experience to “standing under a glass bowl while somebody pours blood over it”.

Now foreign minister of the Marshall Islands, he was 9 years old when he witnessed “Operation Castle Bravo”: a US H-bomb 1,000 times more powerful than that which devastated Hiroshima.

“There are many parallels” between the fallout from the nuclear testing of the 1950s and climate change, says de Brum. Both endanger his people; both are driven by powerful outside interests.

A seasoned campaigner on both fronts, the septuagenarian tells RTCC why the shipping sector is his latest target in his Pacific nation’s bid for survival.

Comment: Climate change threatens entire Pacific cultures

With rising seas threatening to swamp its low-lying coral atolls, the Marshall Islands has long been a vocal advocate for climate action.

But until earlier this year, the Majuro government turned a blind eye to the rising emissions trajectory of one of its biggest industries.

It is the third biggest flag registry in the world, after Panama and Liberia: responsible for regulating a 118 million tonne fleet.

“It was pointed out to us by many of our friends worldwide there was a discrepancy here,” says de Brum. “You are the third largest shipping registry in the world, but there doesn’t seem to be any consideration of what that industry must contribute.”

The government took advice from the UK, among other allies, and commissioned research from the University of the South Pacific.

Shipping accounts for 3% of global emissions, it found, and without further action that is set to increase to 6-14% by 2050.

Report: UN shipping body shelves emissions target

The sector lies outside the remit of the UN climate body, which only covers national actions. But its greenhouse gases enter the same atmosphere and have the same effect on temperatures.

The Marshall Islands came up with a proposal, tentatively asking the UN shipping body to “start the process to consider” an emissions target.

That proved too radical for the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which after an hour and a half’s consideration shelved the idea.

Disappointed IMO didn’t take stronger position, but industry on notice: climate action train is leaving the station & they must be on board.

— Tony de Brum (@MinisterTdB) May 14, 2015

It was a “disappointment” to de Brum, who came to London to appeal to delegates in person.

“We would have hoped that the IMO would have got excited about taking the lead in some of these efforts.”

While he was speaking, he tells RTCC, his constituency was being inundated by waves from Typhoon Dolphin, the third tropical storm in six weeks.

It is only May and the typhoon season peaks in August. “Even our elders, who are supposed to know these patterns, say nature is confused.”

Report: Cargo owners demand transparency on shipping emissions

His was a rare appearance by a politician in a forum dominated by industry voices and registry officials.

Observers say his intervention ruffled some feathers with the country’s usual maritime representatives.

And he admits his colleagues were “having puppies” since he suggested to the Guardian they might cease to register oil rigs.

That was not a move the Marshall Islands is likely to make unilaterally, de Brum hastens to clarify, but is an option to consider.

“Many members of our team think if we push too hard on this issue, it may spook business,” he says.

While “we are not going to shoot ourselves in the foot,” he adds: “The registry belongs to the country and we don’t want to have a situation where the tail is wagging the dog.”

On average just 2m above sea level, the Marshall Islands are vulnerable to storm surges (Pic: Alson J Kelen)

De Brum is speaking to RTCC the morning after the IMO debate, in the middle of a punishing travel schedule.

He is recovering from a mosquito-borne virus and picks at the full English breakfast his advisor insists on putting in front of him.

But he is not defeated. The IMO’s inaction was “a wake-up call” and de Brum will be sharing his experience on the rest of his tour: Petersberg Climate Dialogue, Paris Climate Week then Asia.

Because for all the danger looming over the Marshall Islands, the thought of giving up and leaving is “repugnant”.

Many Marshallese were forced to move after the US nuclear testing made some parts of the country radioactive no-go zones.

They suffered birth defects, cancers and social stigma. To this day, de Brum has “chicken skin”, which he attributes to the exposure.

“There is only so much pushing around you can do to a community of human beings before something breaks.

“And if these islands go, it is only a matter of time before the rest of the world starts smarting from climate change impacts.”

The post Why the Marshall Islands are rocking the boat at UN shipping talks appeared first on Climate Home News.

Shipping is responsible for 2-3% of global greenhouse gas emissions
(Pic: National Ocean Service)

By Megan Darby

The UN shipping body will not offer an emissions reduction target towards a global climate deal in Paris this December.

That was the upshot of a debate at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in London on Wednesday.

Delegates agreed only to address “at an appropriate future date” a proposal from the Marshall Islands to curb greenhouse gases in the sector.

“The question still remains: Is the IMO committed to reduce emissions?” said Bill Hemmings of the Cleaner Seas Coalition.

“The answer has not been given a clear yes. I think that is a very unfortunate reflection on this house.”

Shipping has a carbon footprint equivalent to Germany or Japan.

Under business as usual, the IMO’s own research shows shipping emissions are set to rise 50-250% by 2050, as a growing population boosts demand.

With countries targeting emissions cuts, shipping’s share of the emissions space will grow even faster – up to 14%.

Existential dilemma

Marshall Islands foreign minister Tony de Brum made a personal appeal to delegates to play their part in global climate efforts.

An archipelago of low-lying coral atolls, the Marshall Islands is particularly vulnerable to sea level rise and tropical storm surges linked to climate change.

It is also the world’s third largest shipping registry and depends on the ocean for much of its economy.

“The very water that sustains us is lapping at our heels and threatening our survival,” said de Brum.

He called for “all hands on deck to face the greatest challenge we have ever faced”.

Other Pacific island states gave the proposal their full support.

Foot dragging

But while there were many expressions of sympathy, most countries including the US, China and Panama declined to back a target.

Nor did EU member states come through, despite the European Commission declaring its support.

Instead they urged a focus on existing efforts to regulate energy efficiency.

Koji Sekimizu, IMO secretary general, was also ambivalent. He spoke of “solidarity” with the Marshall Islands but stopped short of backing its proposal.

“The shipping industry is a servant to the world community and trade,” he said. “We will ensure that efficiency will be improved and we will ensure that the reduction will be achieved for ship-based emissions.”

The IMO has imposed an energy efficiency design standard on new ships. For existing ships, it has agreed to monitor fuel consumption with a view to potential policy interventions in future.

Yet on Tuesday, negotiators were still at odds over how to collect and use data from ships.

CO2 targets, trajectories and trends for international shipping

In a paper released to coincide with the meeting, UK scientists said emissions curbs needed to be “significantly more stringent” under international climate goals.

The UN climate body is aiming to limit warming to 2C above pre-industrial temperatures. Vulnerable countries argue the goal should be tightened to 1.5C.

The global fleet must get at least twice as efficient by 2030 if shipping is to play its part in a 2C world, the researchers found.

Tristan Smith, energy and transport expert at UCL, said: “The planning for change cannot start soon enough, if it’s going to have a minimum of disruption on international shipping and global trade.”

Opportunities

Writing before the IMO debate, Carbon War Room head Jose Maria Figueres argued an emissions target would bring “substantial business opportunities”.

He cited research from UCL and CE Delft showing the most efficient ships use 30-50% less fuel than average.

“Efficiency makes good business sense,” he said, and low carbon technology is available.

Experts told RTCC the emissions target debate would be back on the table next year at the earliest, if the Paris deal sends a clear signal.

UN climate chief Christiana Figueres gave no indication she would intervene, however. In a phone conference, she said international emissions were outside her domain and the two bodies would run in parallel “at least in the foreseeable future”.

The post UN shipping body shelves emissions target appeared first on Climate Home News.

Shipping accounts for 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions (Flickr/Derell Licht)

By Megan Darby

Big businesses like AstraZeneca, H&M and Volvo want to know how green the ships are that carry their products, so they can tell their customers.

They have signed up to the Clean Shipping Index, a register showing the environmental performance of more than 2,000 ships from 50 carriers.

“What we are trying to create is a market demand for clean ships,” director Sara Sköld told RTCC.

“For our members it is very important to be able to evaluate and choose the most energy efficient vessels. In order to do that, they need reliable and transparent data.”

But for every merchant ship covered by the index, 24 are not. Most companies can only guess at the carbon footprint of their maritime transport.

At the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in London on Tuesday, national delegates debated regulations that would serve that purpose for the entire 50,000-strong global merchant fleet.

Countries have agreed to collect data on ships’ energy efficiency, yet the exact information and how it will be used remains contentious.

After lengthy and fractious discussions at the IMO environmental committee, the issue was kicked back to a working group.

Transparency concerns

While countries like Norway and Ireland spoke in favour of mandatory and transparent reporting, many others dragged their feet.

Objectors echoed shipping companies’ argument that data from individual ships was commercially sensitive and should not be published.

The negotiator for the Bahamas said he could not support publishing data that might be “badly misinterpreted” by third parties.

Like a number of island states, the Bahamas is vulnerable to climate change but dependent on ship registrations for much of its revenue.

The upshot is that IMO can collect data only for its own analysis and decision-making – not publish it for shipping clients to make their own judgements.

Aside from regulations on the design of new ships, this is the main international climate policy for a sector responsible for 3% of global emissions.

With countries moving to curb their greenhouse gases, shipping’s share is set to more than double by 2050 without further action.

Analysis: Marshall Islands makes waves on shipping emissions

On Wednesday, the IMO will consider a proposal from the Marshall Islands to set an emissions target for the first time.

That could contribute to a global climate pact due to be struck in Paris this December.

Jytte Guteland, a Swedish politician, encouraged the IMO to show leadership and back the proposal.

“If the maritime sector would like to be a leading sector in the future… it needs to also be one of the sectors who takes responsible actions for climate change,” she told RTCC.

One of four lawmakers visiting the IMO from the European Parliament’s environment committee, Guteland said she was “frustrated” to see slow progress but hoped for “some good decisions”.

The European Union has already agreed to make large ships visiting European ports report their emissions from 2018.

That should be a sign to the UN body, Guteland said: “If IMO cannot formulate its own policies, someone else will do it.”

The post Cargo owners demand transparency on shipping emissions appeared first on Climate Home News.

Majuro is the capital of the Marshall Islands, a nation built on low-lying coral atolls in the Pacific Ocean (Pic: Flickr/Christopher Michel)

By Megan Darby

In UN climate circles, the Marshall Islands is mostly known as one of those states that will be swamped by rising sea levels.

Its negligible contribution to greenhouse gas emissions makes its heartfelt pleas for ambitious action all too easy for bigger nations to ignore.

At the International Maritime Organization (IMO), on the other hand, the Marshalls carry significant weight: 118 million tonnes, to be precise.

That is the mass of 3,400 ships registered in Majuro, more than any other country except Panama and Liberia.

It means the Pacific state could succeed in mustering support for its recent proposal to target emissions cuts in shipping.

Shipping generates 3% of global emissions today, but this could rise to 6-14% if it fails to match countries’ carbon cutting policies, notes foreign minister Tony de Brum.

“We are an island nation and shipping is one of our lifelines – we cannot survive without it. At the same time, carbon emissions, including those from shipping, pose an existential threat to our people and our country.”

Comment: As sea levels rise, climate change threatens entire Pacific cultures

If adopted at an IMO meeting next month, the proposal would force this most lightly regulated of sectors to account for its contribution to global warming.

“It is one of the best things that has happened for a long time,” says Bill Hemmings, a campaigner for the NGO Transport & Environment since 2008. “We hope and expect a positive decision will be taken.”

Countries have agreed to limit global temperature rise to 2C above pre-industrial levels, which entails an overhaul of fossil fuel-powered economies. That is the overarching goal for a climate deal to be struck in Paris this December.

Vulnerable states like the Marshall Islands argue for a tougher 1.5C target.

Either way, shipping is not bound by that framework. It is separately regulated by the IMO, which reports to the UN climate body as an observer only.

“If you put shipping emissions in that framework, you pretty quickly come to the conclusion they have to be reduced,” Hemmings tells RTCC.

“That question has never been put to the IMO before… it is going to be interesting to see how countries react.”

Clean shipping allies

Other Pacific islands are expected to show up to back the plan at next month’s IMO environmental committee meeting (a regular gathering that does not typically attract delegates from all 171 member states).

Many face the same dilemma as the Marshall Islands, counting on ship registration for revenue but grimly aware of the existential threat of climate change.

Poor countries hit hard by intensifying weather extremes are also likely to be supportive, along with Europeans keen to show leadership.

The proposal “could have a lot of impact,” says Tristan Smith, shipping expert at UCL. The Marshall Islands “are such an important voice at the IMO, because they are such a significant flag registry”.

If a majority of countries vote against the measure, the matter will be off the table for another few years. If the vote is in favour, it will go to a committee to thrash out the details.

But there would need to be consensus among member states to make a real difference, Smith tells RTCC. “One of the headaches is whether enough time and diplomatic discussions have gone on behind the scenes for countries to be able to come out strongly in support next month.”

Industry resistance

And the plans are bound to face resistance from the shipping industry.

Lobby group the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) is still formulating its response to the Marshallese proposal, spokesperson Simon Bennett tells RTCC.

In general, he says: “We don’t believe absolute emissions reduction targets are appropriate for the shipping industry, simply because shipping is the servant of world trade.

“Demand for shipping is inextricably linked to the growth of the economy and the growth of the world population.”

Report: Shipping sector needs stronger climate policy – scientists

The IMO has imposed some emissions regulations. Design efficiency standards for new ships were introduced in 2013, while all operators must publish energy management plans.

One of the main agenda items at the next environmental committee meeting is a system to compile energy data from ships.

But policy targeting the sector “remains weak”, scientists at the UK’s Tyndall Centre warned in a recent Nature Climate Change article.

Shippers should be embracing innovation to achieve emissions cuts of 15% by 2020 and 85% by 2050 from a 2010 baseline, they argued.

Efficiency trends

Emissions from international shipping fell 10% between 2007 and 2012, IMO delegates heard at the last environmental committee meeting in October 2014.

That was largely due to the financial crisis and ships running at less than full speed to save on fuel costs, explained UCL’s Smith, who co-authored the study.

With the economy picking up and oil prices low, there is no guarantee the trend will continue. Under business as usual conditions, Smith projects emissions will rise 50-250% by 2050.

Infographic: Transport & Environment

A separate study by Transport & Environment and Seas At Risk earlier this month suggested ship designs had actually got less efficient in the past two decades.

Those built in 2013 were on average 10% less efficient than those built in 1990, it found. By contrast, car efficiency improved 20% over the period.

John Maggs, policy advisor at Seas At Risk and president of the Clean Shipping Coalition, said: “Now we know that we cannot rely on rising fuel prices, other market forces or the good intentions of industry to solve shipping’s climate problem.

“Instead we need a clear and ambitious target for reducing ship greenhouse gas emissions and legally binding measures to get us there.”

Using a “skysail” can cut fuel consumption by up to 35% (Pic: Flickr/PressReleaseFinder)

ICS disputed the conclusion, accusing the campaign groups of using data selectively and failing to take into account operational measures.

Smith says “there are some methodological issues” with the research, but “fundamentally, they have used such a large dataset that the general trend they are depicting does not surprise”.

The results are consistent with anecdotal evidence, he adds, that during the boom times shipyards took a “stack them high, sell them cheap” approach. Efficiency was not a priority.

Technologies are available for ships to cut their emissions, from Flettner rotors to sky sails, but with future fuel prices uncertain, companies are reluctant to invest.

“This is not an engineering problem,” says Smith. “There just needs to be the political leadership to give a clear signal it is going to pay back… The solutions are out there.”

The post Marshall Islands move to shake up shipping on emissions appeared first on Climate Home News.

The Eleonora Maersk is one of the biggest container ships ever built, burning 3,600 US gallons of oil an hour (Pic: Maersk/Flickr)

By Ed King

Levels of traffic on the high seas have soared by 400% in the past two decades, driving up levels of ocean and air pollution from shipping.

This is placing huge stress on marine ecosystems and contributing to a sharp spike in maritime greenhouse gas emissions, say researchers.

Other causes of pollution include the release of wastewater and contaminated water in ballast tanks, toxic anti-fouling paint and accidents resulting in spillages.

Data published in the Geophysical Research Letters journal suggests the Sri Lanka-Sumatra-China shipping lane has been worst affected, with a 50% increase in nitrogen dioxide emissions.

Jean Tournadre from the French Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea in Plouzane, who led the study, said few corners of the oceans were now being left untouched.

“I found it quite worrisome that the ship traffic grew so much, even in very remote regions of the world,” he said.

Report: Global shipping emissions set to rise unchecked

One exception was Somalia, where concerns over pirates have led to ships taking huge detours to avoid that part of the East African Coast.

The study based its calculations on satellite data detecting the location of ships at sea.

(Pic: IMO/2014)

The authors admit they may have overestimated the rate of shipping growth because ships are now easier to locate.

Figures from the UN’s International Maritime Organisation (IMO) indicated that between 2007 and 2012 shipping’s share of global GHG emissions fell from 3.2% to 2.5% due to the economic crisis.

But a report it published in July 2014 says that between now and 2050 these are expected to rise sharply to between 50-250% in the absence of any global agreement to curb carbon pollution.

According to the IMO, oil tankers, container ships and bulk carriers are the three most significant sources of CO2 emissions.

A large container ship can burn 350 tonnes of fuel a day, despite new “slow steaming” practices, where ships move more slowly, that have seen a 27% drop in daily fuel consumption.

According to a 2013 study into global shipping by consultants PwC, in 2012 only 22% of leading companies reported on their CO2 emissions, while 27% completed a sustainability report.

“We do not see improvements in the reporting by shipping companies about this subject,” PwC said.

The post Ocean health threatened as traffic soars 400% in 20 years appeared first on Climate Home News.

Governments are backtracking on efforts to introduce a market based mechanism to reduce emissions in the shipping sector.

The UN’s International Maritime Organisation (IMO) is hosting its regular round of environmental talks in London this week and it was expected to launch efforts to assess the available options.

After the first two days of the week-long event the focus was shifting to reinforcing existing energy efficiency measures, led by the USA.

Mark Lutes, from WWF’s Global Climate and Energy Initiative, told RTCC the US proposal on energy efficiency had broad support including from the EU.

“Our key concern is which countries support it [efficiency] as an alternative to a market based mechanism and emission targets and which understand it as a complement.”

Efforts to curb shipping emissions could turn to efficiency standards rather than a market based mechanism (Source: Flickr/Roberto Venturini)

The shipping sector’s contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions is estimated at between 2-3%.

The IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) meets three times every two years to discuss climate change, pollution and a host of other issues.

It has already introduced efficiency standards for new ships and regulations to improve the environmental performance of existing ships.

The US revealed a proposal on the first day of the meeting to extend the existing efficiency rules and add tough targets to ensure progress can be made to reduce emissions.

Reuters quotes the Kim Carnahan, from the US State Department, calling for a shift in focus.

“From the US position it’s very clear market-based-mechanisms have had a difficult time at the IMO and weren’t progressing quickly,” she said.

“This is the best way to make progress on this issue for the foreseeable future.”

It is expected that support for the proposal and the appetite to continue exploring options for a market based mechanism will be clearer by the end of this round of talks on Friday.

RTCC Video: Shipping has along way to go to curb emissions

The post US backtracks on shipping emissions deal appeared first on Climate Home News.

United Nations negotiations to contain emissions from planes and ships recommence in Montreal and London this week, with hopes for a global climate change deal in 2015 resting on these two sectors.

Only China, USA, India and Russia emit more atmosphere-warming greenhouse gases than the global contribution of shipping and aviation, which tops 1.6 bn tonnes of CO2 a year.

These talks are difficult given the limited alternatives to each mode of transport and increasing demand around the planet.

Technological fixes from biofuels to airships are still a long way away from making significant contributions. Limiting the emissions of each industry in its current form is best bet.

As both sectors are covered by their very own dedicated UN bodies, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), it is here where negotiations on tackling their contribution to climate change takes place.

This week both will meet to discuss establishing some form of financial system to encourage emissions reductions, with many analysts predicting US engagement in aviation talks could pre-empt a breakthrough.

Measures to cut aviation and shipping emissions face a landmark week (Source: Flickr/Conanil)

Neither has enjoyed rapid progress but as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) homes in on its 2020 global deal to be agreed by 2015, both risk being left behind.

“It would be crazy for ICAO to get out of sync with those [deadlines], it would mean that the industry was showing slower progress than is being shown elsewhere,” says Jean Leston, WWF-UK’s transport team leader.

The EU triggered outrage by including international flights in its regional carbon market and backed down in November 2012 on the condition that ICAO demonstrated progress on an international deal.

With one general assembly every three years, this Autumn’s meeting is the last timely throw of the dice.

“It’s all to play for but the USA is the real key country here,” explains Leston. “If the US can make any strong statement to support more rapid progress in ICAO and demonstrate their commitment to rapid progress in ICAO some big emerging economies will probably follow suit.”

The countries she is referring to are principally China and India. China, she says is more open minded about the possibility of some form of emissions trading or mandatory carbon offsetting system for the sector. India has dug its heels in.

“It sees the ICAO negotiations as a subset of the UNFCCC negotiations and they want Common But Differentiated Responsibility (CBDR) to be first and foremost,” says Leston.

CBDR is a founding principle of the UNFCCC talks designed to ensure rich nations take responsibility for their emissions and poorer countries aren’t over-burdened with obligations that hinder their economic development.

The ICAO climate conference will build many of the arguments ahead of weeks of formal negotiations covering ICAO’s full remit. All eyes will be on US climate change envoy Todd Stern when the agenda turns to climate change.

Shipping

The IMO talks have come up against the CBDR issue even more violently. The IMO makes rule for ships not countries. Its foundation is built on the idea of treating all countries the same. Fulfilling both of these conditions is not easy but there are signs of progress there too.

The IMO holds environment meetings roughly every eight months and this week’s sitting could yield meaningful results.

Mark Lutes is a policy coordinator with WWF and is a veteran of the IMO talks. He says some of the tensions created by the adoption of major energy efficiency regulations in 2011, are melting away. This means the sector could make a contribution to global emission reduction sooner rather than later.

“They should be looking at the same deadlines as the UNFCCC as the outer limits of what they can do. They should be able to do it sooner. I think shipping and aviation should be able to contribute to pre-2020 ambition as well,” he says referring to the emerging climate treaty’s goal to find new ways to slash emissions prior to the global deal coming into force in 2020.

Industry

Leston says the aviation sector is supportive of a market based mechanism with airlines and plane manufacturers joining NGOs and most governments in looking for a solution. The airlines’ preference is for an offsetting system however. This would not generate money in the same way as a carbon levy or an emissions trading scheme.

“We would consider that a terrible missed opportunity because revenue generation could help them invest in greater energy efficiency and biofuels. It would help the industry to decarbonise and could also help provide climate finance to developing countries,” says Leston.

Waning industry support for a system to curb shipping emissions could be the one cloud hanging over the IMO talks in London.

“I get the impression that the industry is sensing less political pressure for an agreement, so they may take a harder line. A few years ago the EU was pushing strongly for a regional or an international measure. The industry could now think that they can get away with doing nothing now,” warns Lutes.

With responsibility for both sectors moved out of the spotlight of the UNFCCC talks, it is easy to over look the talks. As atmospheric CO2 cruises above 400ppm, the opportunity to cut emissions without waiting for the 2015 deal shouldn’t be missed.

The post USA holds key to aviation emissions deal appeared first on Climate Home News.

The EU’s strict new controls on sulphur emissions from shipping fuel come into force today.

The current limit on sulphur content of 3.5% will be rolled back to 0.5% by 2020. Without the changes, shipping would be responsible for more of the region’s sulphur emissions than all its land-based sources put together.

In addition to limiting acid rain causing sulphur output, it will also reduce the amount of particulate matter in the air, tiny particles that can have serious health impacts.

“Improving air quality is a long-standing environmental challenge. It has taken some time but now the maritime sector is engaged,” said Janez Potočnik, Environment Commissioner.

Sulphur Dioxide emissions from EU shipping would equal all land sources by 2020 with action. (Source: Flickr/Tom Turner/SeaTeam Images)

“The big winners are the European citizens who will breathe cleaner air and enjoy a healthier life and industry supplying clean fuels and technology.”

Shipping fuels can have a sulphur concentration up to 5000 times higher than those for lorries and trucks.

Although sulphur dioxide is not a greenhouse gas, the addition of EU-wide shipping regulations could signal the bloc’s plans to legislate the shipping sector to cuts its climate altering emissions.

Efforts are currently under way through the UN’s International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to find a financial mechanism to incentivise reduced emissions. The EU had been considering establishing its own regional system in response to frustration with efforts through the IMO, but has backed down.

It is thought that carbon levies on EU shipping alone could be worth $10bn a year. The Green Climate fund, the principle tool for aggregating climate aid has set itself a target of raising $100bn annually from 2020 onwards.

Funds from both the shipping and aviation sector are considered to be a promising potential source of climate finance with the IMO and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) developing plans for their respective industries.

Negotiations have been controversial and too slow for some with the EU recently establishing, and then winding down, an international carbon trading scheme applicable to all flights using airports in the region.

It has given ICAO one year to conclude its own system or it will once again include all airlines.

The post EU targets air pollution with tightened shipping rules appeared first on Climate Home News.

In 2007, the shipping industry emitted more CO2 than Germany.

By 2050, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) estimates that the 2007 tally of 870 million tonnes of CO2 could be 2-3 times bigger as the industry continues to grow unless action is taken. That’s more than modern day Russia and India combined.

Taxes on international transport are considered by the UN climate change agency, the UNFCCC, a potential source of contributions to its climate finance programme, the Green Climate Fund (GCF), which has a target of raising $100bn annually by 2020. A charge on shipping emissions is considered as a significant potential contributor with a fair degree of predictability.

The responsibility for figuring out how to do that lies with the IMO – with the hope that any deal will respect the UNFCCC’s guiding principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibility (CBDR).

CBDR is designed to ensure that those who made the greatest contribution to causing climate change and who are best equipped to respond, take on the greatest burden to tackle it. An IMO deal without it would not gain support at the UNFCCC.

This is where the complications begin.

While the UNFCCC’s members discuss regulations for countries, the IMO’s Parties are regulating ships.

Slapping levies only on ships from developed countries, could trigger mass re-registration of ships to sovereign nations where those levies do not apply, a process known as “reflagging”.

The IMO pursues a “no more favourable treatment” policy to keep the global shipping fleet under one global set of rules. This doesn’t sit too well with the concept of CBDR.

Shipping emissions represent around 3% of global greenhouse gases. A levy could generate $10bn a year for the Green Climate Fund. (Source: Flickr/Conanil)

A flat rate would also mean developing nations would be hit with the same charges as the wealthiest. The poorest nations are not responsible for the mass manufacturing growth or consumption patterns that drive the supply and demand for sea freight.

The most recent meeting of the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) in London last month included some of the first hazy outlines of what a resolution to this problem might look like.

“The two principles can be compatible,” says Mark Lutes, Policy Coordinator at the WWF Global Climate and Energy Initiative who follows the IMO talks closely.

“These [conflicts] are characterised by strong differences between rich and poor. I think we can recognise and respond to those differences in ways that are compatible with the traditional approach of the IMO based on non-discrimination.

“Developing countries have accepted that a system has to be based on non-discrimination. That’s a sign that they are abandoning the problematic position of insisting that any measures had to be voluntary for ships from developing countries and mandatory for ships from developed countries. That represents some flexibility on the part of the developing countries,” says Lutes, adding that a proposal by Singapore to encourage nations to consider CBDR could represent “the sweetspot of compromise”.

$10bn a year for Green Climate Fund

Part of the reason for this growing optimism is the prospect of an international levy on shipping applicable to all ships, but which also funds a rebate mechanism for the governments of countries with a low value of national imports.

The rebate can therefore ensure that developing countries, which Lutes is at pains to point out would not necessarily be defined by the UNFCCC’s roster of Annex I and non-Annex I status, are not disproportionately harmed by the levy.

Lutes says shipping could be worth $10bn a year to the GCF even after rebates and investment in the sector has been taken into account so the stakes are high.

“The design of the mechanism is going to be so important to ensure that we find a solution without creating barriers to trade and development,” says Edmund Hughes, Technical Officer for air pollution and climate change with the IMO.

“There are a few phases we have to go through to do this. We have to update the Green House Gas inventory for shipping. The next phase is an impact assessment, particularly the impact on developing countries,” says Hughes.

“Policy makers have to be aware of the knock-on effects of these policies. If there is going to be an impact [on developing countries] then we need to also know that will be mitigated, and how that will be done.”

Incentive

Talks on the finer points of the mechanism will continue. In the meantime the industry is likely to be on the end of further accusations of obstructing environmental issues as those following the UNFCCC talks wrongly assume no progress is being made.

The reality is that there is a massive incentive for the sector to cut its emissions now, before a market mechanism is complete.

“Fuel represents 50-70% of a shipping operators costs but when most of the fleet that is at sea today was built, it was four times cheaper than it is today,” says Hughes.

With prices so high, Hughes argues that this could be the most opportune time to help the industry to reduce its fuel costs. Emission cuts are bound to follow.

Related articles:

WWF: Shipping emissions tax worth $10bn a year to the Green Climate Fund

Call for UN climate agency to back Robin Hood Tax

Aviation battle lines drawn as first attempt at a global carbon deal turns sour

The IMO has developing two frameworks to improve ships’ efficiency. The Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) applies stringent criteria for new ships to ensure run as efficiently as is reasonable to expect.

The Ship Energy Efficiency Management Plan (SEEMP) applies to all ships promoting improved hydrodynamics to reduce drag and smarter routing of ships. Why go full speed to port only to sit by the dockside for longer?

“The savings can be as much as 10-50%, a lot of that can be attributed to speed which is a significant factor in the energy efficiency of a ship,” says Hughes. That means shipping operators achieving the magic number of 50% could cut their overall operating costs by 25-35%. What better incentive?

Will the EU “do an aviation”?

Shipping and aviation are often lumped together in discussions at the UNFCCC, but in reality they are hugely different.

Aircraft tend to travel along set routes, and don’t change course in the middle of a journey unlike ships.

“Most aircraft are for passenger carriage whereas most shipping is for cargo. There is a lot more variability in general so trying to establish a system that is fit for, and captures all those variants is going to be quite a challenge,” says Hughes.

China, India, Russia and the US have led opposition to the EU’s regional aviation levy. (Source: Creative Commons/Julian Herzog)

Aviation has become a poison pill at the climate negotiations after the EU chose to include all flights using EU airports in its carbon trading system regardless of which country the airline is from. China, the USA, Russia and India were furious.

Fears that the EU would grow impatient with the IMO have now relented.

“The EU have now said they’ve had a change of heart and announced that they aren’t going to look for a regional market based measure. Their focus will now be on establishing an measuring, reporting and verification (MRV) system for all ships entering EU ports,” says Hughes.

“In a way that acknowledges and recognises that there are some unique challenges for the shipping industry compared to the aviation industry,” says Hughes pointing out the potential of a rift to disrupt international trade.

Lutes is equally relieved to see the EU distancing itself from developing its own system.

“It is particularly difficult to do a regional mechanism with shipping. The EU seems to have more of an interest in MRV and efficiency right now. Whether you are working on efficiency measures or levies or trading, you need a platform to measure, report and verify emissions so any MRV system they want to pursue could lay the groundwork for a global measure on shipping in the future,” says Lutes.

The post Why taxing shipping emissions is not all plain sailing appeared first on Climate Home News.

A global levy on shipping emissions could be worth at least $10bn a year to the Green Climate Fund (GCF), according to WWF.

Talks on a financial mechanism to incentivise reductions in emissions from the industry are ongoing through the UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) but the latest progress has seen an outline of how a potential system could operate.

A levy placed on all ships would be collected from shipping companies, with the US pressing for this to be linked to fuel consumption. In order to compensate developing economies, their governments would then receive a rebate, taken from the collected revenue.

Shipping could raise as much as $10bn a year for the Green Climate Fund. (Source: Flickr/IngridTaylar)

The GCF is the centrepiece of the UN’s climate finance plans with a goal to raise $100bn a year by 2020. Levies on shipping and aviation emissions have been touted as a key source of finance for the fund since its inception.

“The money should be used for in-sector activities to improve research, efficiency and capacity building to reduce shipping emissions further,” said Mark Lutes, Policy Coordinator at the WWF Global Climate and Energy Initiative who follows the IMO talks closely.

“The money that is left, which could be substantial, it could be tens of billions of dollars, at least $10bn, should go to climate finance ideally through the GCF,” Lutes told RTCC.

Before any of this money is issued however, Lutes says the governments of developing countries must first be compensated to ensure that the UN climate change agency’s principal of Common But Differentiated Responsibility (CBDR) is met. This ensures that major emitting, wealthy economies take a heavier share of the burden.

The levy cannot be selectively applied to ships from specific countries as they can simply “re-flag” under a different state in order avoid the charges.

Lutes said the rebate is likely to be linked to the value of a country’s imports so that those consuming the fewest goods are affected least by the levy.

Issuing the levy directly through national governments is also a non-starter.

“The money from the global shipping industry should be handled internationally. If it goes into national treasuries we’ll never see it again, it will disappear into national budgets,” said Lutes.

The IMO talks on a potential mechanism are held roughly every eight months with the next meeting scheduled for April 2013.

Related articles:

Will the billions needed for climate change finance be found in Doha?

IMO stalls on shipping CO2 emissions as clash with EU looms

Shipping industry rails against inclusion in national climate change targets

The post WWF: Shipping emissions tax worth $10bn a year to the Green Climate Fund appeared first on Climate Home News.

The EU will establish a system to measure shipping emissions as of next year in what is a precursor for a formal levy on the sector’s emissions.

The International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) Environmental Protection Committee meets in London this week to discuss potential financial mechanisms to help cut carbon. The EU meanwhile has said it will establish a Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) system that would provide the necessary data for any action on emissions.

There have been suggestions that shipping emissions, which represent between 2.7% and 4.5% of man made greenhouse gas emissions, could be taxed globally or included in an international emissions trading scheme. The EU could now be looking to kick-start that process.

Shipping emissions contribute around 3% of global man made greenhouse gas emissions. (Source: Flickr/Conanil)

“Shipping is a global industry and needs global solutions to address its environmental footprint. As a result, we are all working towards an internationally agreed global solution to decrease greenhouse gas emissions from ships,” read a joint statement by Siim Kallas, Vice-President of the European Commission and Connie Hedegaard, EU Commissioner for Climate Action.

The EU took the controversial step of including international aviation in its own regional Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

The move has created much controversy with Russia, India, China and the US opposed to their inclusion in the scheme that calls on any flight landing or taking of at an EU airport to account for 15% of the associated emissions.

Unlike aviation, ships can be allocated to other countries in a process known as re-flagging, making national legislation easy to avoid. The IMO applies it regulations to all ships evenly, which helps to avoid this scenario.

The UNFCCC on the other hand, applies its laws to countries depending on their “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities”.

Uniting the principles of the two organisations could prove a significant challenge.

The development of an MRV system could be the first indication of a similar move by the EU for the maritime sector, as with aviation. It would also remove a frequently cited obstacle to action on shipping emissions at international negotiations.

Related articles:

UK minister accused of stabbing EU ETS in the back over aviation comments

UNEP: Pollution from shipping and oil exploration could accelerate Arctic ice thaw

IMO stalls on shipping CO2 emissions as clash with EU looms

“This will help make progress at a global level and feed into the IMO process. It’s therefore our joint intention to pursue such a monitoring, reporting and verification system in early 2013,” said the statement.

The IMO has introduced stiff energy efficiency standards for ships built from 2015 onwards, however linking emissions with financial incentives is the long term goal of international climate action efforts.

“At EU level, we consider several options, including market-based mechanisms. A simple, robust and globally-feasible approach towards setting a system for monitoring, reporting and verification of emissions based on fuel consumption is the necessary starting point,” said the EU statement.

Both shipping and aviation emissions have been left out of international climate action so far. Talks are continuing in each sector’s own UN body, the IMO and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) respectively.

All eyes will be on Brussels once the MRV system is in place, to see whether shipping follows aviation into the EU ETS or whether a global arrangement can be fixed through the IMO and the UNFCCC.

RTCC Video: The IMO’s Björn Kjerfve on the challenges facing the global shipping industry

The post EU lays groundwork for global shipping climate action appeared first on Climate Home News.