Governments pressurising shipping and aviation to be greener

Despite, commercial aviation and ocean shipping contributing to more than 2% each of annual global CO2e, these industries were excluded from the Paris climate treaty last year. Now governments and pressure groups are calling for stronger measures to reduce CO2e. Experts cite a number of reasons that aviation and shipping were not included in the treaty, including a desire to keep the text brief to improve the chances of reaching an agreement. This news comes as nearly 150 nations are planning to attend the United Nations climate agreement signing ceremony on April 22 at the UN Headquarters in New York.  

Even though commercial aviation and ocean shipping are significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions, they were excluded from the Paris climate treaty, to be signed by more than 100 countries this week at the United Nations in New York.

Now governments and advocacy groups are pressuring these industries to take stronger steps to curb pollution.

A coalition of European, North African and South Pacific nations is lobbying the International Maritime Organization, the United Nations agency that oversees shipping, to start discussing an emissions-reduction commitment at a meeting in London that will begin Monday.

“We need to do something and go beyond what we already have, and set some very specific targets,” said François Martel, the secretary general of the Pacific Islands Development Forum. The forum’s members include the Marshall Islands and the Solomon Islands, two of six nations that have made a proposal, expected to be taken up at the meeting, that shipping contribute a “fair share” to reducing emissions.