MEPC 80: Timely adoption of mid-term measures needed to overcome 'weak' GHG agreement
The maritime regulator had the opportunity to make this week historic, but it has failed to align shipping with the Paris Agreement, climate non-profit Opportunity Green says.
PHOTO: The IMO adopted a revised GHG strategy today. IMO
Despite two weeks of lengthy discussions, the IMO has made insufficient progress to secure a 1.5°C goal for shipping, Opportunity Green says. The climate targets set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement are aimed at limiting the global temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
The Opportunity Green says the two interim GHG reduction targets adopted by the IMO today for 2030 and 2040 have been sabotaged.
“This agreement does not get us nowhere near 1.5°C,” Opportunity Green’s shipping manager Ana Laranjeira says.
Laranjeira commends the efforts made by Pacific Island nations and other ambitious member states to secure the best possible outcome, despite extremely intense rounds of negotiations. She thinks that member states now have to ensure a timely adoption of mid-term measures.
The ambitious carbon levy measure proposed by the Marshall Islands and the Solomon Islands can be used to bridge the price gaps between fossil marine fuels and low- and zero emission fuels, Laranjeira adds.
In their submission to IMO, the two island nations urged the IMO to adopt a "basket" of measures that combine a carbon levy and a GHG Fuel Standard.
Opportunity Green, points to a World Bank study that says between $1-3.70 trillion could be raised from a carbon levy towards 2050. But mid-term measures such as a carbon levy will only be possible to adopt by the IMO in 2025 and implement from 2027 at the earliest now, which could again delay shipping decarbonisation.
By Nithin Chandran
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