Transport | Marine

WWF and Oxfam join forces to help shipping industry tackle emissions

Charities WWF and Oxfam are joining forces to call on governments attending the United Nation climate summit in Durban this week to tackle emissions from shipping.

Together with the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), which represents over 80% of the global merchant fleet, WWF and Oxfam want to see COP17 give the International Maritime Organization (IMO) clear directions on reducing shipping emissions.

The partners say that a global regulatory framework for reducing emissions that takes into account the interests of developing nations, for example through market-based measures (MBMs), is the most effective way forward.

Such a framework could include a compensation mechanism for developing countries taken out of the revenues collected from international shipping.

The revenues could potentially be directed through the putative Green Climate Fund, the $100 billion-a-year fund being discussed at the Durban summit to help developing nation tackle climate change.

The partners support the IMO as the best means of administering such measures, but say that the urgency of climate change means that governments must take steps to ensure that the organisation speeds up its actions.

“We are very pleased that the shipping industry acknowledges its responsibility to play its part in further reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” says Samantha Smith of WWF. “A strong political signal by leaders in Durban showing their determination to make progress on this will help accelerate that process.”

Peter Hinchliffe, ICS general secretary, agrees that such a framework could, in principle, be implemented through the IMO.

“If governments decide that shipping should contribute to the UNFCCC ‘Green Climate Fund’, the industry can probably support this in principle as long as the details are agreed at the IMO, with the industry’s clear preference for a Market Based Mechanism being a compensation fund linked to the fuel consumption of ships, rather than an emissions trading scheme,” he says.

For further information:
www.oxfam.org
www.shippingandco2.org
www.panda.org/
www.marisec.org/

02 December 2011

Back