European Parliament insists the EU governments to include aviation and shipping in a Global Climate Deal at Paris.
The European Parliament’s Environment Committee has insisted the Environment Ministers of the 28 EU countries to include Shipping and Aviation in the climate conference COP21 that will be held at Paris.
This consideration will be taken up by the Environment Ministers of the 28 European member states which will be meeting on 18 September to finalise the EU position for COP21.
“To promote increased climate ambition from ICAO and IMO, like all the other sectors of the global economy, aviation and international shipping require an emissions reduction target. There is no reasonable excuse to continue exempting these two economy sectors from the global policy framework. Aviation and shipping need to contribute in the same way that is required of all UNFCCC Parties, large and small.” said, The heads of the political groups on the Environment Committee.
Sotiris Raptis, clean shipping officer at sustainable transport group Transport & Environment, commented: “It’s simply fair to demand from two economic sectors with emissions the size of Germany and South Korea to reduce CO2 emissions in line with keeping the global temperature increase below 2 degrees celsius. The IMO and ICAO have been procrastinating so far. The time for action has come.”
EU 2030 emissions reduction target for shipping and measures for the reduction of ship’s’ speed (slow steaming) was taken up by the European Parliament last week.
International aviation and shipping are the biggest pollutants in the world. Emissions from aviation and shipping account up to 8% of the global climate change problem. The emissions from these industries are expected raise 200-300% for aviation and 50-250% for shipping by 2050. Such increases would undermine efforts to limit the rise of global temperature to under 2 degrees.
