On the sidelines of the “One Planet” climate summit in Paris, the international maritime sector has launched a declaration urging the shipping industry to take action for significant emissions reduction, in line with the Paris Agreement goals.
Convened two years to the day after the historic Paris Agreement, and realized at the request of French President Emmanuel Macron, World Bank President Jim Kim and UN Secretary-General António Guterres, the One Planet Summit is an alliance of hundreds of global leaders from all sectors, determined to address the global fight against climate change.
The so-called “Tony de Brum” declaration, signed by 35 states, including UK, France, Denmark, Germany, Canada, the Marshall Islands, Chile and New Zealand, says shipping should adopt a cap on shipping CO2, with the ambition of reaching zero emissions towards the mid-century.
Paris Agreement, adopted during UNFCCC COP 21, aims to respond to climate change threat by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and then to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius. However, it excluded international shipping and aviation from the targeted emissions cuts.
This shipping declaration comes amid a global push to IMO to develop a shipping decarbonisation strategy. The declaration welcomed IMO’s efforts to adopt first strategy for GHG reduction from shipping in April 2018 and a revised strategy by 2023.
In a sign of continuing EU frustration at the slow pace, EU governments and the European Parliament agreed last month that Europe should act regionally on shipping emissions from 2023 if the IMO fails to deliver effective global measures by then. Such thoughts were echoed at the summit in Paris, with delegations calling for ship emissions to be included in state commitments – also referred to as nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – under the Paris agreement.
IMO Sec-Gen Kitack Lim urged Member States to be bold when addressing climate change and shipping, ahead of #OnePlanetSummit. pic.twitter.com/b8XxRbm1E7
— International Maritime Organization (@IMOHQ) December 12, 2017
The December Paris gathering takes place less than a month after the successful conclusion of the November UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn (COP23) and is the first in a series of international summits to help countries to raise ambition and bolster their national climate action plans, which is crucial to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Specifically, the December Paris summit is expected to:
- Showcase climate action initiatives that are underway and which can be scaled-up with the right kind of support;
- Announce several bold new initiatives that will provide new financial resources in key areas such as renewable energy, small-scale farming,
- support for women and forestry in developing countries;
- Explore how the world’s financial architecture can be transformed to unleash the trillions of dollars that will be needed for sustainable development globally.
