Oceana calls for effective policies to reduce CO2 shipping emissions - Oceana

Posted - May 19, 2011 - Madrid - Oceana

Measures proposed by Oceana can help reduce global warming and ocean sea acidification caused by carbon dioxide.
Today at European Maritime Day, Oceana called for the implementation of effective policies to ensure the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from European fleets. The international marine conservation organization highlighted the critical importance of addressing the issue of maritime traffic in tackling climate change. Indeed, if the global shipping fleet were a nation it would be the sixth largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world, surpassed only by China, USA, Russia, India and Japan.
Shipping was responsible for over 1 billion tons of CO2 emissions in 2007, and the International Marine Organization (IMO) calculates that if no reduction policies are established these emission levels could double or triple by 2050. That said, the IMO recognizes that the global fleet can become between 25 and 75 percent more efficient if operational and technological measures are implemented to reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. Currently, up to 90% of the fuel used by vessels can be lost as heat or exhaust and does not contribute to propulsion, which shows the urgency of introducing and updating on an ongoing basis such measures.
“Global trade is growing at a fast pace and unfortunately, so is its carbon footprint. There are however technologies available today that can be implemented into new ships to reduce fuel consumption and emissions. In the case of older cargo vessels, aged 30 or 40 years, some measures like slow steaming, ballast optimization and on-time port arrivals that prevent idling, can easily be put in place”, explained Anne Schroeer, economist and Baltic Sea Project Manager at Oceana.
Marine life is particularly at-risk from these emissions, since oceans absorb 80% of the heat generated by greenhouse gases and 30% of CO2 emissions. This process relieves climate change at the global scale, but in exchange it threatens marine wildlife and ecosystems. Warmer waters are disrupting ecosystems and ocean circulation, while acidity caused by the absorption of CO2 into sea waters makes it difficult for many organisms to create their shells and skeletal structures. Fisheries and the many livelihoods that depend on the industry will become further jeopardized unless urgent, effective measures to reduce emissions are implemented.
The IMO is not setting a carbon dioxide reduction target since 14 years. Oceana supports the European Union to act and introduce caps on CO2 emissions from ships. Shipping efficiency not only means saving fuel and reducing costs, but also implies preserving sea species and their habitats”, added Schroeer.

Story at:
http://eu.oceana.org/en/eu/media-reports/press-releases/oceana-calls-for-effective-policies-to-reduce-co2-shipping-emissions

Air and sea transport must start trading carbon, say Europe's finance ministers - Energy & Environmental News

Post Date: 18 May 2011

European finance ministers meeting in Brussels yesterday called for international shipping and aviation greenhouse gas emissions to be included in a global carbon pricing system.
In a decision immediately hailed by Oxfam's climate change adviser Lies Craeynest as a “double win", they said that this would become “a potential source of revenues that would also generate the price signal necessary to efficiently achieve emission reductions from these sectors".
The EU is already resolute that aviation will be included in its Emissions Trading Scheme after 2012, despite opposition registered by at least 120 countries at an International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) meeting last October.
The finance ministers issued a statement on climate finance which said that although raising the $100 billion per year by 2020 to tackle climate change - as agreed by world leaders in Copenhagen 2009 - is challenging, it is feasible.
They noted that €7.2 billion will be available up to the end of 2012 in Europe, and challenged other countries to come up with their share of the cash.
One of the mechanisms for raising this cash must be a “robust carbon market" to drive “the carbon price necessary for low carbon investment to achieve global mitigation objectives in an efficient way".
They acknowledged that public finance is a particularly important source for developing countries striving to meet their reduction targets, that is difficult to provide in the current economic climate.
It says therefore that “the carbon pricing of global aviation and maritime transportation is a potential source of revenues that would also generate the price signal necessary to efficiently achieve emission reductions from these sectors".
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) and ICAO must therefore "develop without delay a global policy framework that avoids competitive distortions or carbon leakage".

Complete Story at:
http://www.eaem.co.uk/news/air-and-sea-transport-must-start-trading-carbon-say-europes-finance-ministers

EU steps up pressure for maritime emissions deal - euobserver.com

Posted - May 17, 2011 - euobserver.com

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU member states have stepped up pressure for an international agreement to curb emissions from the maritime and aviation sectors, stressing that a system of carbon pricing for ships and planes would help capitalise a $100 billion climate fund.
EU finance ministers meeting in Brussels on Tuesday (17 May) said securing the $100 billion per year by 2020 would be "challenging but feasible", after developed countries signed up to the commitment at international climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, late last year.
Talks on curbing maritime carbon emissions have been ongoing for years where the money, destined to help developing countries fight climate change, will come from still remains unclear, however.
While Europe has implemented an emissions trading system for heavy industry within its own borders, the bloc has become increasingly frustrated by the slow pace of discussions within the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
In the meeting's conclusions, EU finance ministers highlighted that: "Carbon pricing of global aviation and maritime transportation have the potential to generate large financial flows."
"Further work is needed in IMO and ICAO to develop without delay a global policy framework that avoids competitive distortions or carbon leakage," added the ministers.
EU climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard also recently vented her frustration at the slow pace of negotiations on curbing carbon emissions from the maritime sector, stressing that the EU would not wait forever.
"Since 1997, IMO has had this task [of reaching an agreement], without delivering, and that's why we are very clearly signalling we are losing patience," she said last month...

Complete Story at:
http://euobserver.com/9/32346

Shipping sets sail for sustainable future - Bunisess Green

Posted - May 17, 2011 - BusinessGreen.com

Industry big hitters outline challenges to sector becoming socially and environmentally responsible by 2040

Some of the biggest names in shipping will today call on the industry to take co-ordinated action so that the maritime sector is sustainable and profitable in 30 years' time.
The 14 members of Forum for the Future's Sustainable Shipping Initiative (SSI), including Maersk, Cargill, Lloyd's Register and the WWF, will jointly publish a Call to Action paper (PDF) identifying climate change and oil supply as two of the three key challenges the industry must overcome in the coming decades.
The paper says that volatile oil prices are likely to significantly increase costs, and that the industry is under growing pressure to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
Shipping currently accounts for around four per cent of the world's emissions, but its share is predicted to expand rapidly as international trade increases.
The SSI says that companies now investing in energy efficiency and new fuels will by favored by customers and suppliers, including ports, financiers and insurers.
"This [investment] is challenging but necessary," the report says. "Companies that fail to act will be vulnerable to competition in an increasingly uncertain market."
As well as calling on the industry to work together to build new, energy efficient ships, and retrofit existing vessels to the same standards, the SSI calls on shipping companies to help develop legislation rewarding sustainability and to follow long-term investment plans that take social and environmental obligations into account.

Complete Story at:
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2071187/shipping-sets-sail-sustainable-future

Aviation’s GHG fight a portent for shipping - Carbon Positive

Posted - Friday, 13 May 2011 - Carbon Positive

A vision of the future for greenhouse-gas (GHG) regulation in international shipping over the next few years might be playing out in international aviation right now - and it is not a pretty sight.
Airlines, governments, peak industry bodies and environmental groups around the world have weighed into a fight over the European Union’s plans to bring the aviation sector into the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS) next year. Under the plan, all internal and international flights to and from EU airports will be covered, requiring airlines to hand over emissions permits for every tonne of CO2 emitted during operation, much the same way as land-based emitting industries have had to do under the scheme since 2005.
The European Commission in Brussels initiated the move because it believes the aviation sector must do its part among heavy-emitting industries in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The EU has an overall target to decrease emissions at least 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.
Brussels holds the same view about shipping and a similar regulatory move is expected to be announced early next year if no global maritime CO2 emissions reduction programme is agreed by the IMO or the UN climate change convention, the UNFCCC, by the end of the year. Any programme have to involve substantial reductions along the lines of the market-based measures on the table in front of IMO’s environment committee. But agreement on any such measure is highly unlikely this year. If Brussels does decide to implement its own regional emissions regime on shipping, it would likely take the form of an emissions cap and trade scheme, and the simplest solution would be inclusion of the maritime sector too in the existing EU-ETS, from as early as 2013.

Complete Story at:
http://www.carbonpositive.net/viewarticle.aspx?articleID=2324

U.S. Court of Appeals to Hear Challenges to EPA Vessel General Permit - The Maritime Executive

Posted - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - The Maritime Executive

Washington, D.C. - On Monday, May 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear argument on the industry challenge to portions of the Vessel General Permit -- the Environmental Protection Agency’s first effort to regulate incidental discharges from the normal operations of vessels.
EPA issued the permit in 2008 after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that the 30-year-old exemption for these discharges was invalid and that these discharges had to be regulated. The permit is a Nationwide Permit and represents the first time the agency has sought to regulate mobile sources under the Clean Water Act.
After proposing federal standards and taking comment, EPA obtained additional requirements from states under section 401 of the Clean Water Act and issued a final permit on Dec. 18 that included more than 100 new requirements based on state submissions. These new requirements, however, never were offered for comment as to whether they were conflicting or contradictory for vessels moving through waters of several states.

Complete Story at:
http://www.maritime-executive.com/article/u-s-court-of-appeals-to-hear-challenges-to-epa-vessel-general-permit

EU Commissioner in row with paper over marine emissions - World Bunkering

Posted - May 10, 2011 - World Bunkering

The European Commissioner for Climate Action Connie Hedegaard, has responded to an article in New Europe which criticized her for excluding shipping from “any legislation in matters of CO2 emissions reduction, at least until the year 2050”.
In a letter to the newspaper’s editor, Ms Hedegaard says: “It is simply wrong to claim that the Commission is not serious about tackling greenhouse gas emissions from ships. Along with the EU Member States we are the most active in the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the UN Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC), actively participating in all sessions and working groups, raising this topic and proposing targets and solutions. There is so much potential to reduce emissions, stimulate technological developments and reduce fuel bills that it would be irresponsible not to take action.”
The original article “EU Allows Maritime Pollution Until 2050” was full of claims that would be contested by the bunker and shipping industries and appeared to have been written with the benefit of only limited knowledge of the shipping industry; it claims for example that Taiwanese shipping giant Evergreen is based in Singapore. It also accuses the shipping industry of claiming that sulphur reduction measures also reduce CO2 emissions. The article’s main thrust however is that shipping should be included within the EU Emissions Trading System.

Complete Story at:
http://www.worldbunkering.com/news/industry-news/0607-eu-commissioner-in-row-with-paper-over-marine-emissions.html

Arctic Council Ministers Faced with Warming Problem - Voice of America news

Posted - May 10, 2011 VOA News.com

When ministers of the eight-nation Arctic Council meet in Greenland May 12 to discuss a variety of issues crucial to the polar region they will have the benefit of two reports commissioned by the Council on the changing climate and how to best respond to accelerating warming.
The first report produced by the Council’s scientific arm updates the assessment made by the United Nations Panel on Climate Change in 2007. Leading American glaciologist Gordon Hamilton at the University of Maine says arctic conditions have changed dramatically since then. “With our new understanding on how ice sheets are behaving and how they are responding to climate change, we can say that the IPCC estimate for sea level rise from 18-59 centimeters is a very large underestimate and we are looking at something probably at least twice as large as the upper end of the estimate. So we are expecting one meter of sea level rise by 2100.”
That poses a threat to low lying coastal communities, where half the world population lives. The report also finds that the Arctic Ocean could become nearly ice-free in the summers within the next 30 to 40 years. And, Hamilton says, researchers do not expect the oceans to cool down for a long time. “If it is that the ice sheets [are] responding to the ocean [temperature], that change is going to persist for decades to come. There’s not an easy way to switch that off.”
But a second report authored by an Arctic Council task force finds that the ice melt can be slowed down dramatically within the next few decades by curbing air pollution. U.S. government chemist Patricia Quinn contributed to that report. She says, while CO2 reductions are central in any effort to mitigate climate change, attention must be paid to shorter lived pollutants like the soot from truck and ships, known as black carbon, and methane from oil and gas drilling, coal mines and waste systems. “Immediate reductions in short-lived climate forcers [climate changing emissions] including black carbon, methane and ozone will have a larger near term impact on global temperature than immediate reductions in CO2. So by 2040 we could have a much larger impact on decreasing warming by focusing on the short-term climate forcers.”

Complete story at:
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/environment/Arctic-Council-Ministers-Faced-with-Warming-Problem-121595344.html

EU talks tough on shipping emissions - hellenicshippingnews.com

Posted - Monday, 02 May 2011 - Hellenic Shipping News "Dot" com

The European Union has used a high-level climate and energy summit to send a new warning shot across the bows of the international maritime industry and its regulator that it is losing patience on the sector’s efforts to implement a programme of greenhousegas emissions reductions in international shipping.
Brussels hosted the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate this week, bringing together the world’s 17 biggest emitters, both developed and developing nations and including the US, China, India, EU, Brazil, Russia and Japan. The aim was to continue dialogue on an intractable issue of a global agreement to reduce climate changing greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions.
While the meeting made clear that reaching a legally binding climate agreement was not possible in 2011, EU climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard signalled that this would not stop the EU pushing forward on rules for ships and planes this year. The two sectors were ignored at UNFCCC climate talks in Cancun last December. Hedegaard said this week that the Durban meeting must make progress on these high-emitting transport sectors that lie largely outside the jurisdiction of individual nations.
The EU’s plainly stated position is that if the IMO or the UNFCCC don’t come up with a global regulation for maritime GHG emissions by the end of 2011, then it will act to implement its own emissions caps on international shipping in its region. That regulation is expected to see shipping being included in the existing EU emissions trading scheme.
"It is not enough for Durban just to implement what was agreed in Cancun," she said. "Inclusion of shipping and aviation, these kind of topics we will also push for." Hedegaard said the EU’s preference is for shipping emissions to be tackled by the UN International Maritime Organisation (IMO), but would not wait forever. "Since 1997, IMO has had this task, without delivering, and that's why we are very clearly signalling we are losing patience," she said.
US climate negotiator Todd Stern suggested a softer approach would come Washington on shipping and aviation; that they be given more time to negotiate their own emissions reduction agreements.

http://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=21055:eu-talks-tough-on-shipping-emissions&catid=46:top-story-b&Itemid=151