Shipping industry sees price on carbon emissions
The world shipping industry could accept a global levy on carbon
emissions from merchant ships under a deal that would also channel
proceeds to poor countries, according to an announcement at the UN
climate talks on Tuesday.
Maritime transport accounts for roughly three percent of world
emissions of greenhouse gases.
But, like the aviation industry, it does not have any targeted curbs
on this pollution, an omission that green campaigners are fighting to
change.
In a joint statement, the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS),
WWF and Oxfam said carbon emissions from merchant ships could be
subjected to "market-based measures" as an incentive to reduce
greenhouse gases.
Part of the revenue from this could go to a planned Green Climate
Fund that, in theory, will provide up to 100 billion dollars a year for
developing countries most at risk from climate change.
WWF's director of international climate policy, Keya Chatterjee, said
the deal was "an agreement in principle" and some details, including the
carbon price, needed to be hammered out in further negotiations in the
UN's specialised shipping organisation.
The ICS, which accounts for more than 80 percent of the world's
merchant fleet, prefers a straightforward levy but the WWF could accept
other options, she said. Chatterjee described the accord as a
breakthrough.
Failing to factor in the cost of fossil-fuel pollution from transport
was "a subsidy... an enormous failure," she told AFP.
The announcement was made on the second day of talks in Durban under
the 194-nation UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
ICS Secretary General Peter Hinchliffe said in the statement that the
rules should be crafted under the UN's International Maritime
Organization (IMO), "with the same rules for carbon reduction applying
to all internationally trading ships, but in a manner which respects the
principles of the UN climate convention.
DURBAN, South Africa, (AFP) |