Shipping Back in COP21 Draft

Shipping and aviation emissions are back in the draft COP 21 agreement following a meeting of negotiators last week.

The move came in the final week of official negotiations before the key U.N. Paris meeting in December. Negotiators met in Bonn, the German city that hosts the U.N. climate secretariat UNFCCC.

Shipping was dropped from the text earlier on October 5. However, on October 14, E.U. parliamentarians called for emissions reduction targets for both sectors to be set before the end of 2016 by the corresponding UN agencies, the IMO and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

Echoing comments from the OECD’s International Transport Forum that it would be odd for countries to have to adhere to emissions reduction targets but not the international shipping sector, the E.U. Parliament’s plenary voted for parties to the Paris deal to ensure that aviation and shipping is regulated.

The draft text now included states:

Parties [shall][should][other] pursue limitation or reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from international aviation and marine bunker fuels, working through the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Maritime Organization, respectively, with a view to agreeing concrete measures addressing these emissions, including developing procedures for incorporating emissions from international aviation and marine bunker fuels into low-emission development strategies.

Environmental group Transport & Environment (T&E) praised the decision to re-include the industry but said the draft’s language needs to be considerably strengthened if it is to help curb the two sectors’ growing climate impact.

Bill Hemmings, clean shipping and aviation manager at T&E, said: “International aviation and shipping emissions are the elephants in the room for the UNFCCC. The Paris Agreement must send a clear signal – not a passing reference – to the U.N. bodies regulating these emissions, ICAO and IMO, that time is up and action is now due. The two degree global warming limit becomes next to impossible if Paris gives these sectors a free pass.”

Hemmings also said: “The latest text is the result of developed and developing countries cooperating on this issue for the first time. There is real hope now that Paris will close these gaping loopholes.”