MEPC80: IMO Moves Towards 2050 Net Zero Target for Shipping; Interim Targets Remain Up in the Air

The UN body's Marine Environment Protection Committee is meeting in London this week. Image Credit: Ship & Bunker

Support for a 2050 net zero emissions target for shipping is building at the IMO ahead of a key meeting this week, but negotiations over shorter-term goals are proving tougher to resolve.

The UN body's Marine Environment Protection Committee is meeting in London this week, tasked with adopting a revised decarbonisation strategy. The IMO's initial strategy, set in 2018, envisages a cut of least 40% in carbon emissions per transport work from 2008's levels by 2030, and a cut of at least 50% in the shipping industry's total GHG emissions by 2050.

The organisation's working group on GHG emissions met last week to prepare the revised strategy, and Tristan Smith of UMAS has published a statement summarising the state of play in those negotiations.

"The drafting being forwarded to next week's negotiations include some further narrowing down of options, however there are still large ranges on key parameters for example the 2030 and 2040 interim GHG reduction targets (now proposed to be called 'indicative checkpoints'), for which the current leading proposal is a 20% GHG reduction in 2030 and 70% GHG reduction in 2040, likely on a well-to-wake (aka lifecycle) basis," Smith said in an emailed statement on Friday.

"If these numbers solidify in the strategy, it will not be possible to say the IMO's GHG reduction strategy is directly or transparently aligned with the 1.5 temperature goal."

Smith lists at least seven proposals with some level of support from member states targeting net zero emissions by 2050, or a similarly-worded target. But the room was more divided on what levels of ambition should be set for 2030 and 2040.

"The member states are divided on the numbers which leaves a question mark hovering over whether the strategy will be 1.5 aligned," Smith said.

"They are also divided on how best to express the LOA, particularly whether the 2030 and 2040 reductions are levels of ambition, checkpoints or indicative checkpoints and whether to express the final ambition in terms of the numeric date of 2050, matching the ICAO language, or with the phrasing 'around mid-century' matching the language of the Glasgow compact.

"The 'around mid-century' option is seen by some to offer flexibility and by others to offer only ambiguity.

"On other language points, most convergence was on a GHG and lifecycle scope and on the expression zero- or near-zero GHG emissions for use defining the 2030 fuel/energy uptake target percentage."