After voting on amendments on Tuesday 15 September (see EUROPE 12560/7), MEPs formally approved the report by Jutta Paulus (Greens/EFA, Germany) advocating the inclusion of maritime transport in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) on Wednesday 16 September in the European Parliament’s plenary session.
Adopted by a large majority (520 votes in favour, 94 against and 77 abstentions), Ms Paulus’ report concerns the European Commission’s proposal (see EUROPE 12522/17) to revise the Community system for monitoring, reporting and verifying CO2 emissions from maritime transport (Regulation 2015/757, known as the ‘MRV Regulation’).
While MEPs agree with the Commission that the reporting obligations of the EU and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) should be aligned, they also call on the institution to examine the overall environmental integrity of the measures decided by the IMO and make a series of concrete proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the maritime sector.
In addition to the inclusion of maritime transport in the ETS, they thus call for the creation of an Oceans Fund and ask that shipping companies be forced, on pain of sanctions, to reduce their average annual CO2 emissions per unit of transport for all their ships by at least 40% by 2030 (see EUROPE 12522/17). (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)