Brussels, 14/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - As the world welcomed the global climate agreement reached in Paris on Saturday 12 December, many voices have been raised in environmentalist, and also in aviation and maritime sector circles regretting that the air and maritime sectors had not featured in the final version of the text.
“The agreement now leaves it unclear which actors have responsibility to reduce emissions from these sectors. If ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) and IMO (International Maritime Organisation) wish to retain a role, they must urgently scale up their ambition”, said Andrew Murphy of the NGO Transport & Environment. Similarly, among environmentalist MEPs, enthusiasm remains relative. “Good agreement, from which air and maritime transport have unfortunately been excluded. An indication that the lobbies have failed to understand what is at stake in COP 21”, according to Karima Delli (Greens/EFA, France), who is the author of a highly controversial report on sustainable mobility, which attacks conventional fuels (see EUROPE 11445).
The organisations representing the two sectors were also left wondering. The Air Transport Action Group (ATAG) said it was surprised “by the lack of mention of ICAO's responsibility to address aviation emissions (and IMO's for maritime) in the final Paris Agreement, despite appearing in previous drafts”. The European Community Shipowners Associations (ECSA), which represents the maritime sector, welcomed the agreement while, at the same time, regretting that the maritime sector was not included.
The Commission shed some light on this point. “We fought for it till the last moment. The long-term targets include all types of emissions, including emissions from these industries”, assured Energy and Climate Action Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete. He expressed concern at the slow progress in talks in limiting CO2 emissions in the sectors.
ECSA Secretary General Patrick Verhoeven said that the governments within the IMO would resume discussions in April of next year on a system to measure emissions from the maritime sector under realistic conditions. Once this information-gathering system is in place, “the IMO will be able to make progress”. ICAO will put in place a global market instrument by 2020 to reduce the sector's emissions. For the moment, the “Stop the clock” system, which limits application of the ETS directive to internal European flights, will remain in place until 2016 (see EUROPE 11032), to give ICAO the time to reach an agreement. Negotiations are dragging on, however.
There was resistance from some countries, notably Saudi Arabia and Singapore, a European source has revealed, as well as from industry. The maritime sector will not agree to contribute to the long-term target of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees, according to a source. If the two organisations fail to reach agreement, it will be regional organisation, such as the EU, that will impose standards by 2020. In the EU's case, the maritime sector must be made to contribute to emissions trading schemes (ETS) or to compensation funds, Sotiris Raptis of Transport & Environment told EUROPE. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)