Hot air on shipping's CO2 emissions

THE recent One Planet Summit in Paris, convened by French president Emmanuel Macron, gave a much-needed political push to the International Maritime Organisation's (IMO) climate talks which will resume in April. At least that is the view of the environmental lobbyists who think that IMO is more or less a hopeless case and that next spring's meeting is the last chance for the UN agency to at last start to do something "meaningful" to cut the sector's greenhouse gas emissions and play its part in tackling global warming.

Another view would be that the Paris summit was an exercise in grandstanding which failed to recognise the political realities and unfairly denigrated the progress that has already been made at IMO.

European states were joined by the Marshall Islands, Chile, Mexico and other countries in a call for urgent action to tackle shipping's contribution to the climate crisis. Signatories to the Tony De Brum Declaration restated their support for the objectives of the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement and called for action on shipping consistent with those objectives.

"This is a welcome commitment to deliver an ambitious climate deal for the shipping sector, and it's significant that EU member states have been joined by Chile, Mexico and others to signal the importance of getting next year's IMO carbon cutting agreement right," said John Maggs of Seas At Risk.

"As the declaration makes clear, time is running out for the IMO and the shipping industry to deliver a fair contribution to tackling the climate crisis. A 2018 deal in line with limiting warming to below 1.5 deg C requires a strong long term decarbonisation goal and short-term measures, like speed reduction, that will result in immediate emissions reductions."

Disputed points

Exactly what was called for at the Paris summit is to some extent a matter for interpretation.

Campaigning group Transport & Environment (T&E) said that "35 world leaders have called for shipping emissions to be part of every country's emissions reductions commitments under the Paris climate agreement". It noted they also called for a cap on shipping CO2, reaching zero emissions towards the mid-century, to be agreed at the IMO.

T&E is particularly dismissive of the IMO. In a statement it asserted: "The IMO was first mandated in 1997 to address international ship emissions and has yet to deliver any meaningful results. Two years after Paris, it is still struggling to agree an interim strategy. At the latest meeting, in October, to develop such a strategy by 2018, even the urgency of delivering reductions in the short term was hotly disputed."

It added: "In a sign of continuing EU frustration at the slow pace, EU governments and the European Parliament agreed last month that Europe should act regionally on shipping emissions from 2023 if the IMO fails to deliver effective global measures by then. Such thoughts were echoed at . . . One Planet Summit in Paris, with delegations calling for ship emissions to be included in state commitments - also referred to as nationally determined contributions (NDCs) - under the Paris agreement."

T&E shipping and aviation officer Lucy Gilliam said: "This should fire up the discussions on immediate measures - such as operational speed reduction for ships - and agreeing on an emission reduction target to meet the 1.5 deg C warming limit. The shipping sector cannot be exempt from taking its fair share of action to tackle climate change."

There is a lot that is highly contentious in the environmentalists' position and their view of what came out of the Paris summit. You would not imagine from the above that IMO has imposed a global mandatory regime for imposing energy efficiency improvements. To dismiss these as "not meaningful" makes it difficult to take anything T&E says seriously. Nor would you necessarily grasp that shipping is intrinsically a highly energy efficient means of transport which currently accounts for less than 3 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Calls for shipping's emissions to be included in state commitments under the 2016 Paris climate agreement may simply be attempts to put pressure on IMO to come up with an agreement in April. But they demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of how shipping works. Trying to implement such a state or region-based policy would be a recipe for chaos. A global business needs global rules.

Need to deliver

For the maritime sector, the International Chamber of Shipping has a different take on the Paris summit, saying: "ICS welcomes the fact governments recognise that IMO is the only forum which can agree a suitably ambitious CO2 reduction strategy for international shipping, and the vital need for IMO member states to deliver at the critical MEPC (Marine Environment Protection Committee) meeting next April."

"But," warned ICS, "it's important that the signatories [of the main Paris summit declaration] recognise that this is a political negotiation at IMO which requires them to understand the legitimate concerns of emerging economies about the potential impacts on trade and their continuing economic development, consistent with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

"If IMO is to succeed, the signatories should not use this Declaration as an excuse to be locked in to their current positions rather than be pragmatic and flexible, in order to help IMO deliver some truly ambitious objectives that will also enjoy the broad support of the majority of IMO member states - which are the same nations which signed the Paris Agreement two years ago."

Responding to wilder claims as to how little shipping has achieved, ICS added: "With regard to the demand that IMO should establish a peak year for CO2 emissions from shipping, the industry has already proposed this should be 2008, since when the sector's total emissions have declined by about 8 per cent, despite a 30 per cent increase in trade during the same period, and that the sector should continue to hold its total emissions below 2008 levels.

"Encouragingly there is already widespread support for this as an initial objective prior to more dramatic absolute reductions once commercially viable zero carbon fuels become available globally."

Stand by for lots more posturing before April, though there are signs that a sensible, pragmatic outcome is achievable.