The heads of seven out of eight political groups of the European Parliament’s Environment Committee have written to the Environment Ministers of the 28 EU countries urging them to include international shipping and aviation in a global climate deal.
In December 2015, 196 countries will meet in Paris to sign a new climate change agreement. The 21st Conference of Parties (COP21), also known as the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, will, for the first time in over 20 years of United Nations’ negotiations, aim to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2°C.
The Environment Ministers of the 28 European Member States are scheduled to meet later this month to finalise the EU’s official position going into the Paris deal.
Arguing that international shipping and aviation already account for up to 8% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and that emissions are expected to grow significantly, undermining efforts to limit global warming to 2°C, the heads of the political groups on the Environment Committee stated: “There is no reasonable excuse to continue exempting these two economy sectors from the global policy framework.”
They said 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.”
Sotiris Raptis, clean shipping officer at sustainable transport group Transport & Environment, commented: “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.”
He added: “The IMO and ICAO have been procrastinating so far. The time for action has come.”
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