Still No Mention of Shipping in New Thursday Draft of COP21 Climate Deal

Discussions in Paris over the deal, which has not yet been finalised, are now expected to run on until Saturday.

The latest revised draft of the COP21 global climate deal released late Thursday still does not contain any references to shipping.

"The EU won't be happy with this, but for the second time shipping and aviation - responsible for around 5% of global emissions but growing rapidly - have been left out of the draft Paris deal. It seems unlikely at this stage that they will reappear," blogged UK media outlet The Guardian.

Spanish Environment Minister Miguel Arias Cañete, meanwhile, tweeted: "Shipping and aviation MUST be included the final deal. These sectors can't be off the radar."

The view was echoed by Adrian Ramsay, Chief Executive of the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) who added that, "if not included in the agreement we could see continued large growth in these emissions which will undermine efforts to reduce emissions elsewhere."

Green group Transport & Environment (T&E) tweeted, "#Ships & #planes were kept out of new #COP21 text. No chance of staying below 1.5C without addressing them."

The European Union meanwhile was also scathing of the development, or lack thereof, saying it betrayed "unacceptable levels of low ambition."

Discussions in Paris over the deal, which has not yet been finalised, are now expected to run on until Saturday - a day later than planned.

"Things are moving in the right direction," said French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, with compensation for nations most affected by climate change understood to be the biggest issue still to be resolved.

A previous December 5 draft of the agreement had originally included wording calling for the "limitation or reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from international aviation and marine bunker fuels," but as Ship & Bunker previously reported, that text and any other mention of the sectors was absent as of Wednesday's draft.

That triggered the European Community Shipowners' Associations (ECSA) Thursday to call for shipping to be reintroduced into the deal, while green group T&E said it "fatally undermined the prospects of keeping global warming below 2°C."

However the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) echoed its earlier sentiments that shipping was more than capable of continuing on its path of reducing emissions under the guidance of the IMO, and that the exclusion of shipping from the deal is "unlikely to inhibit the aspirations of governments" to reduce the sector's emissions.

Last month ICS said that "aggressive" fuel efficiency efforts being implemented by the global shipping industry, coupled with CO2 reduction measures by the IMO, are capable of delivering "far more ambitious" reductions in CO2 emissions than current government targets.