Shipping removed from COP21 climate change agreement

Industry associations are urging environmental leaders at the COP21 climate talks in Paris to reinstate language surrounding the shipping and aviation industries to the draft agreement, saying regulations should be done through the IMO.    Shipping should be brought back into the text of a draft agreement on climate change currently being negotiated at the COP21 climate talks in Paris, according to key shipowner groups.
   The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), which has represented global ship operators throughout the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris, has said the the latest draft United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change currently contains no explicit reference to international shipping or aviation.
   “I don’t know who got it out but we are fighting for it to be put back in,” EU Energy and Climate Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete told news service Reuters. Canete said not having shipping and aviation in the new text was a “a step backwards.”
   ICS says it would be helpful for the new agreement to reiterate the vital role of the UN International Maritime Organization in the development of further measures to reduce shipping’s CO2 emissions. This would give extra encouragement to build on the global regulations IMO has already successfully adopted and which should reduce CO2 per tonne-km 50 percent by 2050. However, the absence of text is unlikely to inhibit the aspirations of governments – which are shared by the industry – for IMO to take further action.
   “The talks in Paris are a unique opportunity to give a clear signal to the Member States of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) that they need to act decisively in order to further regulate CO2 emissions from ships on a global level. It would provide support for their ability to move forward and give new impetus to ongoing discussions, which we hope will very soon reach fruition” said Patrick Verhoeven, secretary general of the European Community Shipowners’ Associations, in a statement issued Thursday.
   ECSA said shipping and aviation had been included in earlier versions of the draft agreement on climate change, but that the latest version released Wednesday, makes no reference to either industry.
   “The IMO has already made strides when it comes to the shipping industry’s carbon footprint,” said ECSA. “In 2011 it adopted universal measures that made shipping the first industrial sector to have a binding global regime in place to reduce its CO2 emissions. Entered into force in 2013, they require a gradual improvement of energy efficiency for newly built ships through intermediary targets, culminating in the requirement that all ships constructed after 2025 be 30 percent more efficient that those built in the 2000s.
   “However, the IMO’s work on CO2 emissions reduction is far from completed. It remains firmly on its agenda and will be considered again at the next meeting of the IMO Marine Environment Protection Committee in April 2016. The shipping industry supports the establishment, as soon as possible, of a mandatory system of data collection from individual vessels, understanding that the possibility of further market based measures might be revisited after an IMO analysis of the data submitted by ships,” the association added.
   “We firmly believe that deleting any reference to shipping and the progress needed at IMO level is a missed opportunity,” said Verhoeven. “The EU has already placed its faith in the IMO process by adopting legislation that will enable and support IMO in establishing a global data collection scheme.
   “An irreversible process leading to lower CO2 emissions from ships has started. Efforts at IMO and EU level can only be bolstered by a clear signal from the highest UN instance on climate change. We sincerely hope that negotiating parties will seriously reconsider and heed our call for shipping to be reintroduced in the final climate agreement,” he said.