The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) is making little progress on market-based measures to limit carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from international shipping, putting it on a policy collision course with the European Union.A committee of the 170-member United Nations shipping body was unable to make tangible progress after a week of talks that ended late on Friday 2 March.
Discussions on market-based measures, such as a levy on CO2 emissions and a cap-and-trade scheme, will resume in October when the Marine Environment Protection Committee meets again. International shipping accounts for around 3% of the world's emissions of the greenhouse gas that is widely blamed for global warming, and this share could go to 18% by 2050 if regulation is not in place, according to the IMO.
The European Union executive of the 27-nation European Union bloc has threatened to enforce its own shipping regulations if the IMO fails to act, as it has with aviation.
"While we have a clear preference for global action on measures to reduce emissions from shipping, we don't see the IMO on track to deliver reductions consistent with the globally accepted maximum two degrees Celsius objective," a Commission spokesman said, referring to a threshold many scientists say is needed to avert runaway climate change.
The Commission has recently started a public consultation on four policy options, including a compensation fund, an emissions trading system, a fuel or carbon tax and a mandatory emission reduction per ship. It runs through early April. The consultation will be followed by an impact assessment and drafting of a Commission proposal between April and June, with a final proposal to be presented in the fourth quarter.
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