Shipping bodies back cap and trade scheme to cut emissions

Proposal from five countries would cut emissions from the shipping industry, which accounts for nearly 3% of the world's man-made greenhouse gases
John Vidal, guardian.co.uk 23 Sep 09;

The global shipping industry should be treated as a separate country and given its own cap and trade scheme to cut carbon emissions - which amount to nearly 3% of the world's man-made greenhouse gases - industry bodies from five countries said today.

The proposal, which could cost the global industry up to €6bn a year at the present carbon price, was one of several ideas put forward by the UK Chamber of Shipping and its sister organisations in Australia, Belgium, Norway and Sweden. It is hoped that it will lead to a global agreement to significantly cut carbon emissions from the world's fleet of 100,000 ships at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen later this year.

But the five countries declined to propose specific targets or timetables and admitted it would be hard to gain consensus among other countries.

"We would welcome a challenging target. But we are looking to the UN's International Maritime Organisation or the UNFCCC [UN Framework Convention on Climate Change] to set that," said UK Chamber of Shipping president Jesper Kjaedegaard.

This week the international aviation industry pledged to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 50% by 2050 compared with 2005 levels, and to make the industry's growth carbon-neutral by 2020. However the shipping industry said it could not make more precise commitments at this stage.

"The two cannot be compared. Aviation is smaller and more concentrated. Shipping is much more broadly based. There is not enough data yet," said Kjaedegaard.

"We believe some form of emissions trading system is the way to reduce carbon outputs. But it is vital that any emissions trading regime be implemented without driving goods to other modes of transport, which would increase overall emissions and damage commercial shipping."