The hefty carbon footprint of global shipping networks that crisscross our oceans and keep the world’s economy afloat will come under scrutiny next week, as countries wrestle over measures to slash planet-heating pollution.
The hefty carbon footprint of global shipping networks that crisscross our oceans and keep the world’s economy afloat will come under scrutiny next week, as countries wrestle over measures to slash planet-heating pollution.
Nations are under pressure to agree ambitious emission reduction targets and consider a tax on pollution by the sector at a key meeting of the International Maritime Organization. Currently shipping belches out roughly the same level of greenhouse gases as aviation.
The IMO Marine Environment Protection Commission (MEPC) meeting, held in London from Monday to Friday, is likely to pit climate-vulnerable nations—particularly Pacific islands—and some richer countries against big exporters such as China.
«The climate crisis is an existential threat to Pacific small island developing states, and many other countries, but can be seen as less urgent by countries with superior resources,» Michael Prehn, the IMO delegate for the Solomon Islands, told AFP.
«This is why the Pacific has been consistently pressing for the highest possible ambition in climate regulation.»
Shipping, which is responsible for around two percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, is judged to be off course in the fight against climate change.
Efforts to decarbonize so far center around a 2018 IMO decision that instructed shipping firms to reduce CO2 emissions by 50 percent by 2050, from 2008 levels.
But that target is considered insufficient given the level of global emissions and compared to other industries, including aviation, which is aiming for net zero by the same mid-century deadline.
