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Shipping nations are risking losing their control over maritime greenhouse gas reduction standards, global environment organization WWF warned today in the wake of another failure to reach specific agreement on curbing maritime carbon emissions.
The key environmental sub-group of the UN-linked International Maritime Organization (IMO) has just concluded a week long meeting possibly further away than ever from agreement on implementing efficiency and technology initiatives and coming up with market-based mechanisms to cut shipping emissions.
Under existing UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreements, the shipping and aviation sectors have been charged with coming up with mechanisms to cut emissions.
At its last meeting in March, the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (IMO MEPC) had endorsed a package of efficiency measures, specifically mandatory Energy Efficiency Design Indexes (EEDIs) and Ships Energy Efficiency Management Plans (SEEMP). But the week-long meeting just concluded has failed to reach any consensus on implementing these measures.
“Like the aviation industry, the world’s maritime nations either need to find an emissions reductions solution within the IMO framework or face the possibility of less sympathetic regulation from elsewhere,” said Dr Simon Walmsley, WWF’s observer to the IMO talks.
“The worst outcome for a global industry like shipping would be to have differing emissions reductions schemes being imposed in different places – but that is the future shipping nations are courting by failing to reach agreement in their own forum.”
The world’s shipping industry accounts for over 2.7 % of total carbon emissions, and plays an important role in the global economy, transporting over 90% of global trade.
The meeting exposed further rifts between developed and developing maritime nations and was marked by a blunt refusal by some nations to acknowledge that shipping needs to contribute substantially to the global emissions reductions needed to avoid catastrophic climate change.
Complete Story at:
http://yubanet.com/world/WWF-Shipping-nations-risk-losing-control-over-greenhouse-gas-emissions.php
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