What Happened at COP21?
The final text draft for COP21 to agree a global climate deal has been reached.
The climate deal, in what has become known as the Paris Agreement, was reached by nearly 200 nations and is a partially legally-binding commitment to keep global warming well below the threshold of 2°C in light of an expected increase by 2.7°C.
However, within the highly anticipated climate negotiations, both shipping and aviation failed to gain recognition and appear to have been placed on the backburner when it comes to climatic impact mitigation. As feared by some prior to the summit, such as Seas At Risk, the Marine Conservation Society, Carbon War Room and Maersk, the shipping industry has been left out of reference in the deal, meaning that it is unclear which actors have responsibility for reducing emissions in the shipping and aviation sectors.
What Do These Outcomes Mean For Shipping?
Not bound by the Paris Agreement, these industries must take responsibility for their own actions and seek ways to reduce emissions independently in order to achieve reductions. The global regulation the shipping industry has been pushing for has not occurred and this means for ships that have implemented emissions reducing technologies may face competitive disadvantage against those who choose to sail under the flags of countries with the least stringent regulations.
Both the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) will have to scale up their emissions reduction ambitions in order to play a role in the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate change, particularly as next year’s MEPC session, due in April 2016, will likely result in the shipping industry facing scrutiny again according to the Carbon War Room.
What Is Now in the Final Climate Deal?
The climate deal now stipulates that a set of decisions that have been made will take effect immediately to accelerate climate action. The final decision agrees to keep global temperatures below 2°C with the promise to endeavour to limit global temperatures even more to 1.5°C.
The deal will also review each country’s contribution to cutting emissions every five years to ensure they scale up to the challenge and will limit the amount of GHG emissions from human activity to the same level that trees, the soil and the ocean can absorb naturally.
An assortment of other measures were also agreed upon including the integration of Capital funds to assist in accomplishing these ambitious new goals. Developing countries have been promised US $100bn a year by 2020. It was also agreed that the more wealthy countries should provide financial assistance to allow poorer countries to cope, encouraging other countries to join.
