Post-Copenhagen - No Agreement: Where Does This Leave Us Now - Clyde & Co. - Written by Georgina Crowhurst and Laurel Mittenthal. First published in Environmental Law Monthly

Posted March 10, 2010 - Clyde & Co. - Written by Georgina Crowhurst and Laurel Mittenthal. First published in Environmental Law Monthly

The Copenhagen Accord: silence on marine issues

The Copenhagen climate change summit (the Fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (COP15) held in December 2009 took only a "decision to note" a non-legally binding Accord. The Accord "recognizes" the scientific case for keeping temperature rises to no more than 2C but does not contain commitments to specific emissions reductions to achieve that goal.

The Accord does not address marine emissions or the question of setting global sectoral targets for international marine emissions, because there was neither agreement on whether the UNFCCC or IMO should set them, nor the level of cuts required.
The Accord has since been widely criticized, not least for failing to include even aspirational targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions.
Shipping industry observers had expected that at a minimum the Copenhagen summit would reach a political agreement on bunker fuels, perhaps together with an emissions trading scheme. It was envisaged that the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and its Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) would be assigned responsibility for working out the details. But the Bunker Fuels Working Group at Copenhagen was unable to reach consensus, thus avoiding laying the foundations for a bunker fuel tax on shipping. Indeed, the Accord merely refers to innovative sources of finance...

http://www.clydeco.com/knowledge/articles/post-copenhagen-no-agreement-where-does-this-leave-us-now.cfm