Karin Jensen, PlanetArk 27 May 09;
COPENHAGEN - The head of shipping and oil group A.P. Moller-Maersk called on Tuesday on governments to reach a global climate deal for the shipping industry when they meet on a new climate treaty in December.
International shipping was not included in the Kyoto Protocol, a replacement for which the world will try to thrash out in Copenhagen in seven months.
"What we hope for is a model that applies to everyone," Nils Smedegaard Andersen, chief executive of the Danish firm, told Reuters on the sidelines of a business climate conference.
Many shippers fear that competition will be distorted if the Copenhagen talks do not result in a global deal, causing some countries and regions to regulate separately.
"The most important thing is that it's the same for everyone. Otherwise you'll get distortions in global shipping competition," the head of the world's biggest container shipper said.
The best way to cap the global shipping industry's greenhouse gas emissions would be a tax on fuel consumption as that would be easiest to control and administrate, Andersen said.
The tax money should be put in a fund for environment friendly measures, he said.
"We of course believe it's easier to argue for a tax if money is actually spent on reducing the strain on the environment, rather than becoming just another source of revenue for governments."
Andersen said he hoped to be able to transfer most additional costs that a climate deal would mean onto customers.
"It'll depend how high the tax would be."
