Political Groups Argue for Shipping to Be Included in Paris Climate Deal

The groups argue that there is now no "reasonable excuse" from exempting shipping from an emissions target.

The majority of the political groups represented on European Parliament's environment committee are urging European leaders to include international shipping and aviation in the global climate deal scheduled to be signed in Paris in December, environmental group Transport & Environment (T&E) announced this week. 

Environment ministers from all 28 members of the European Union (EU) are scheduled to meet later this month to finalise the EU's official position going into the Paris deal. 

According to the organisation, seven out of eight groups on the environment committee have written letters to EU heads of state, arguing that "to promote increased climate ambition from ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) and IMO (International Maritime Organization) 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," the groups said. 

T&E said that together, the two sectors account for 8 percent of the "global climate change problem," with shipping emissions expected to grow between 50-250 percent by 2050. 

"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," said Sotiris Raptis, clean shipping officer at T&E.

"The IMO and ICAO have been procrastinating so far." 

The organisation has long called for a global emissions target for shipping, having commented earlier this year that only hard targets will be effective in dealing with global emissions.