Briefing 19/2009

8 May 2009

Climate change on the agenda as UN agency leaders meet at IMO

Leaders of three United Nations agencies involved in the UN Climate Change Conference   (COP 15) that will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December this year, held a preparatory meeting at IMO’s London headquarters on 30 April 2009.

The meeting was hosted by IMO Secretary-General Efthimios E. Mitropoulos and was attended by Mr. Y de Boer, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Mr. R. Kobeh González, President of the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

The three discussed potential hurdles to be crossed in the process leading up to the December conference, as well as the potential outcome both for the environment and for the two international transport industries.

Mr. Mitropoulos stated at the close of the meeting that the interests of the environment and the shipping industry would be best served if the UNFCCC Parties, at COP 15, continued to entrust IMO with the development and enactment of the global regulatory regime needed to ensure that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from international shipping as a whole are reduced or limited.

IMO, which has 168 Member States and three Associate Members, has established an ambitious but achievable action plan to address GHG emissions from international shipping and is now working towards a robust regime that will regulate shipping at the global level and contribute to the deceleration of climate change. The Organization has adopted “Climate change - a challenge for IMO too” as the theme for the 2009 World Maritime Day, in recognition of the intense focus this topic is receiving within IMO this year, including expected agreement by IMO's Marine Environment Protection Committee, in July 2009, of a package of technical and operational measures providing for an Energy Efficiency Design Index for new ships; a Ship Energy Management Plan for new and existing ships; and an Energy Efficiency Operational Indicator for existing ships. The Committee will also give further consideration to market-based measures and decide on the way forward. 

Mr. Kobeh emphasized that a globally-harmonized framework is essential for tackling greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from international aviation due to their global nature. He added that a Group on International Aviation and Climate Change (GIACC) was created and mandated by the Assembly of ICAO in 2007 to pursue this global framework through an aggressive ICAO Programme of Action on International Aviation and Climate Change.

The Programme would reflect the shared vision and strong will of the 190 Contracting States of ICAO and will take into account the substantial work of ICAO in the areas of technological, operational and market-based measures to reduce aviation GHG emissions and the use of alternative fuels as a key component of any long-range strategy to substantially reduce CO2 emissions. The ICAO Council has scheduled a High-level Meeting on International Aviation and Climate Change in October 2009 to review the Programme of Action and the recommendations to COP 15, in order to ensure that the best concrete advice on how to reduce GHG emissions from international aviation is provided to the UNFCCC process.

Mr. de Boer stressed the importance of the work IMO and ICAO are doing to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions from aviation and maritime bunker fuels, particularly this year, which is set to culminate in an agreed outcome on strengthened climate change action in Copenhagen.  He underlined the potential contribution these sectors could make to achieving the long term objectives of the climate change convention and said that the Copenhagen agreement needs to contain effective language that will constitute a solid foundation for the work of IMO and ICAO to address emissions from bunker fuels.

Background information

In 2007, Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreed at a conference in Bali, Indonesia to shape an ambitious and effective international response to climate change, to be agreed at the Copenhagen Conference.

COP 15 is expected to adopt a new framework for combating climate change from the year 2012, possibly replacing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which sets binding targets for the reduction of GHG. At the conference, Parties are expected to reach agreement on essential political decisions, such as the percentage to which both industrialized and developing countries are willing to reduce or limit the growth in their greenhouse gases emissions and the elaboration of appropriate financing mechanisms to help developing countries engage in emission reduction and climate change adaptation.

Because emissions from international civil aviation and maritime transport largely take place outside national territories, reduction obligations for these two transport sectors were not included in the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC but were left, instead, to the special agencies of the UN responsible for regulating both industries, namely the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO), respectively.

The Copenhagen Conference, in its quest to achieve agreement on a post-Kyoto treaty instrument, will also consider how emissions from international civil aviation and maritime transport should be regulated after the first commitment period expires in 2012, based on information submitted by ICAO and IMO respectively, but primarily taking into account the views of UNFCCC Parties.

Both the aviation and shipping industries have grown considerably over recent decades and are projected to continue growing in the long-term, notwithstanding the current economic situation, due to continued expansion in global trade and tourism. ICAO and IMO attach paramount importance to the issue of emission reductions but the political sensitivity of the issue, in particular the question of whether an international control regime should be made applicable to aeroplanes and ships from all countries or to craft from developed countries only, has thus far prevented adoption of mandatory reduction schemes.

This question is of critical importance for the shipping sector, in which almost three-quarters of the world’s merchant fleet is registered in developing countries. A control regime covering only the remaining quarter of the fleet would be largely ineffective in combating climate change. Further re-flagging could deplete the potential effectiveness of any measures even further. The challenge for the two regulatory bodies is, therefore, how to develop efficient control regimes for international transport sectors that take into account the special needs of developing countries and can be accepted by all parties, from both developing and developed countries.

__________

IMO - the International Maritime Organization - is the United Nations specialized agency with responsibility for the safety and security of shipping and the prevention of marine pollution by ships.

Web site: www.imo.org

For further information please contact:

Lee Adamson, Head, Public Information Services on 020 7587 3153 (media@imo.org ) Natasha Brown, External Relations Officer on 020 7587 3274 (media@imo.org ).