Asia/Pacific News
Japan Backs Shipping Carbon Tax
One of the biggest shipowning nations has told the International Maritime Organisation it would support a carbon tax.
Japan's proposal reported by the Financial Times suggests the industry pays $56 per metric tonne (pmt) of carbon dioxide (CO2) from 2025 to 2030, raising more than $50 billion (bn) a year on shipping's almost 1bn mt of emissions.
It also suggested increasing the costs every five years, up to $135 pmt from 2030.
"We want to propose a scheme that would collect money from fossil fuel [powered] vessels and return the money to zero-emission vessels" to help the operators of environment-friendly ships recoup their upfront investment costs, a Japanese maritime bureau official involved in the proposal was quoted as saying.
So far, only the Marshall Islands and the Solomon Islands have proposed a meaningful financial incentive to decarbonise shipping, at $100 per CO2 tonne.
The International Chamber of Shipping wants to see a levy at the equivalent of 63 cents per CO2 tonne to set up a research fund, which many member states have said is a distraction from more substantive discussions over a carbon tax.
