Climate target ‘impossible’ without curbing shipping emissions

The NGOs, part of the Clean Shipping Coalition which has observer status at the IMO, said that failing to curb emissions from ships will jeopardise the efforts of other sectors, making it all but impossible to keep global warming well below two degrees.

According to an EU study, shipping could be responsible for 17% of global CO2 emissions by 2050 if left unregulated, yet the industry escaped explicit mention in the Paris climate deal.

Seas at Risk and T&E warn that the IMO has so far failed to tackle the issue of the shipping industry’s growing contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.

John Maggs, senior policy advisor at Seas at Risk, said: “There is no reasonable excuse to continue exempting the sector from the global and EU climate change policies.”

“That shipping needs to make its fair share of cuts to keep global warming well below 2 degrees is not negotiable after Paris,” he added.

The European Parliament’s study took into account the IMO’s own research which found that shipping greenhouse gas emissions are up 70% since 1990 and are projected to grow by up to a further 250% by 2050. Shipping currently accounts for nearly 3% of global CO2 emissions.