Shipping is omitted from the draft text of the agreement which will be signed at the Paris Climate Conference
A global conference is held in Paris to keep the planet’s warming from greenhouse gases to below 2 degrees Celsius. The latest draft text for a global climate deal published by the United Nations has omitted global airline and shipping industries. These industries hold a primary responsibility to reduce carbon emissions. This climate change pact is being negotiated in Paris.
Highlights of the conference:
- 200 nations attempt to craft a breakthrough global deal
- The deal aims to slow the rise in world temperatures
- The omission of the major emitters (shipping and aviation) stay as contentious issues.
- Aviation and shipping make up around five percent of global emissions
- The pact encourages nations to curb their carbon output
- The conference develops concrete measures addressing these emissions
- The European Commission estimates that air and marine transportation could contribute as much as a third of all emissions by 2050
EU Energy and Climate Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete said.,“I don’t know who got it out but we are fighting for it to be put back in,” He said not having shipping and aviation in the new text was “a step backwards.”
Some activist groups were also concerned.
“The dropping of international aviation and shipping emissions from the draft Paris climate agreement… has fatally undermined the prospects of keeping global warming below 2°C,” green groups Seas At Risk and Transport & Environment (T&E) said in a joint statement.
“We do think it is in the long-term interest of the shipping industry to be regulated but that it should also be fair,” said John Kornerup Bang, lead advisor on climate change with Denmark’s Maersk Group. “It must be global, flag neutral and managed by the IMO. Otherwise, it won’t work.”
Peter Hinchliffe, the secretary-general of the International Chamber of Shipping, warned that it wasn’t over yet, with negotiators heading into all-night sessions attempting to agree on a final deal by the weekend.
“It is still early days yet,” he said. “The discussion is far from over, and I am sure that Europe will have at least one more go at inclusion.”
Source: Reuters
