Carbon emitters in air and on sea could weaken Paris climate deal

PARIS — Activists call them the elephants in the room. Together, the international aviation and shipping industries make up more than 5 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. Left unchecked, that number could climb to 10 to 32 percent by 2050. Yet these sectors of the global economy go largely unregulated and may escape oversight in any deal that may be reached this month in Paris at the U.N. Conference on Climate Change, delegates say.

From 1990 to 2010, emissions of greenhouse gases from the aviation and maritime industries increased 80 percent, growing twice as fast as emissions from the rest of the global economy. The expected surge in maritime and air traffic will likely drive those emissions even higher, potentially increasing by as much as 250 and 300 percent by 2050, respectively.

Activists in Paris say the spike in aviation and maritime emissions is a result of the industries operating without carbon-reduction policies and falling through the cracks of previous climate negotiations. This is in part due to the supranational nature of shipping and aviation, according to Andrew Murphy, a policy officer at Transport and Environment, an advocacy group based in Brussels.

The Netherlands, for instance, ships a large percentage of Europe’s trade, while neighboring Belgium does not. If shipping emissions were calculated according to source country, Dutch authorities would have a huge jump in their amount of assessed greenhouse gases — and a corresponding burden to reduce it.

But unlike emissions from power stations and automobiles, shipping and aviation fall under special categories. Developed countries that signed on to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol were tasked with pursuing a reduction of greenhouses gas emissions from these sectors through the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO), both United Nations agencies.

“These organizations have failed to act on that mandate,” said Murphy.

The ICAO said it has taken steps to address CO2 emissions, with the goal of improving fuel efficiency by 2 percent every year and having carbon-neutral growth by 2020. It supports member states’ reducing emissions by modernizing air traffic management, accelerating the use of fuel-efficient aircraft technologies and pushing for the deployment of alternative fuels.

But both agencies have fought attempts to impose a top-down reduction in their industries’ CO2 emissions, including an industrywide cap. 

“Such measures would artificially limit the ability of shipping to meet the demand created by the world economy or would unbalance the level playing field that the shipping industry needs for efficient operation and therefore must be avoided,” the outgoing secretary-general of the IMO, Koji Sekimizu, said in September.

The statement elicited strong reaction from a number of heads of state, including Tony de Brum, the foreign minister of the Marshall Islands, an island state that is in danger of sinking under rising oceans. De Brum called Sekimizu’s comments “a danger to the planet.”

During the Paris climate talks, the European Union is advocating for including language in a new climate treaty that would require the ICAO and IMO to reduce industry emissions in line with keeping average global warming under 2 degrees Celsius — which climatologists generally agree would allow us to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. But the latest draft of the text that parties are negotiating has only a vague reference to emissions cuts.

On Wednesday morning in a draft suggestion, the EU, with the support of Canada and New Zealand, called for the negotiations to address “at a global level, greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping and aviation, in line with the below 2 degrees objective, as soon as possible.” But the proposal was rejected by a number of countries — including Argentina, Saudi Arabia, India and China — according to a delegate present in the room who wished to remain anonymous in order to maintain relationships while negotiations are underway.

Around the globe, a number of local initiatives to address shipping and aviation emissions are moving forward even without a climate deal.

Virgin Airlines aspires to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, either through emission reductions or offsets, and Virgin CEO Richard Branson recently called for a mandatory carbon tax that would be applied to all aviation companies. The government of Norway recently partnered with local companies to produce the world’s first environmentally friendly fleet of coastal vessels, which are powered entirely by batteries or a combination of batteries and liquid natural gas.  

Highlighting the importance of setting emission targets for the maritime and aviation sectors during the Paris talks, a group of civil society organizations on Wednesday gave the ICAO and IMO the Fossil of the Day award, a prize given to the most regressive country or agency in the climate talks.

“Between them, the IMO and ICAO have the same emissions as Japan and Germany combined,” read a statement released by the Climate Action Network. “Nonetheless, they are currently exempt from being included in the Paris agreement, and they’re doing their best here to keep it that way … No wonder the foreign minister of the Marshall Islands says the secretary-general of IMO is ‘a danger to the planet.’”