E.U. Wants CO2 Targets

The heads of seven of the eight political groups of the European Parliament's environment committee have written to the environment ministers of the 28 E.U. countries urging them to include international shipping and aviation in COP21’s global climate deal.

The ministers will be meeting on September 18 to finalize the E.U. position for COP21 – the U.N.’s meeting on climate change scheduled for Paris in December.

The heads of the political groups on the Environment Committee said: "To promote increased climate ambition from ICAO and IMO, like all the other sectors of the global economy, aviation and international shipping require an emissions reduction target. There is no reasonable excuse to continue exempting these two economy sectors from the global policy framework. Aviation and shipping need to contribute in the same way that is required of all UNFCCC Parties, large and small." 

The European Parliament called last week for the establishment of an E.U. 2030 emissions reduction target for shipping and measures for the reduction of ships' speed (slow steaming).

Sotiris Raptis, clean shipping officer at sustainable transport group Transport & Environment, commented: "It's simply fair to demand from two economic sectors with emissions the size of Germany and South Korea to reduce CO2 emissions in line with keeping the global temperature increase below 2 degrees Celsius. The IMO and ICAO have been procrastinating so far. The time for action has come."[...]

The Maritime Executive

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