AP Photo, from story below, is from Santos, Brazil.
Call it a tariff, call it a tax. Call it something I've been calling for, for a decade or more.
It's limited. It's just on global shipping. And, the thresholds are fairly high.
Nonetheless, this is the real deal. It is indeed a step in the right direction:
“By approving a global fuel standard and greenhouse gas pricing mechanism, the International Maritime Organization took a crucial step to reduce climate impacts from shipping. Member states must now deliver on strengthening the fuel standard over time to more effectively incentivize the sector’s adoption of zero and near-zero fuels, and to ensure a just and equitable energy transition,” said Natacha Stamatiou of the Environmental Defense Fund.
And, it has some additional target areas:
The previous day, delegates approved a proposal to designate an emissions control area in the North-East Atlantic Ocean. Ships traveling through the area will have to abide by more stringent controls on fuels and their engines to reduce pollution. It will cover ships coming into and leave ports in the North Atlantic, such as the United Kingdom, Greenland, France and the Faroe Islands. It will oblige ships from North America, Asia and many other destinations to reduce emissions, said Sian Prior, lead adviser to the Clean Arctic Alliance.
Interesting.
Here's one loophole of sorts:
One major issue during the meetings was the way the fee would be charged. More than 60 countries entered the negotiations pushing for a simple tax charged per metric ton of emissions. They were led by Pacific island nations, whose very existence is threatened by climate change.
Other countries with sizable maritime fleets — notably China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and South Africa — wanted a credit trading model instead of a fixed levy. Finally, a compromise between the two models was reached. The compromise is in the ambition of the measure, since the fee is not a universal levy on all emissions.
I guess it was necessary, and perhaps can be tweaked in the future.
And? It was reached outside of the auspices of the UN, and with the US refusing to participate. Here's The Donald and minions:
The United States didn’t participate in the negotiations in London and urged other governments to oppose the emission measures being considered. The Trump administration said it would reject any efforts to impose economic measures against its ships based on emissions or fuel choice, which it said would burden the sector and drive inflation. It threatened possible reciprocal measures if any fees are charged.
Trump would actually be dumb enough to do this. The carbon shipping tariff serves as a de facto tariff on China, since we're a massive importer, and is one allowed under WTO rules, but Trump would be dumb enough to shoot himself in the foot.
The NYT notes no other country followed the US out the door. Not even China with its massive shipping fleet and massive amount of exporting. So, Trump's attempts to derail this will surely fail:
“The U.S. is just one country and that one country cannot derail this entire process,” said Faig Abbasov, shipping director for Transport and Environment, a European advocacy group that has pushed for measures to clean up the maritime industry. “This will be first binding decision that will force shipping companies to decarbonize and switch to alternative fuels.”
The NYT adds that the fees apply to ships of all countries, no matter where registered or how flagged.
Now, such a tariff has lost some of its bite with the tariff wars started by Trump 1.0, largely continued by Biden, and now escalated by Trump 2.0. It's still better than nothing.
And, we should also curb our enthusiasm in other ways until this plays out. After all, nearly 15 years ago, the Environmental Defense Fund touting this carbon shipping tariff in the first pull quote was touting how much good carbon cap and trade would do. (And, its economist in the piece was saying that we needed to ultimately change lifestyles.)
Nonetheless, it’s a start. And, since global shipping makes up 3 percent of carbon emissions, nipping it in the bud any little bit helps. A little bit.
And, beyond The Donald, per my piece yesterday, the International Maritime Organization also enacted this tariff even as many hypercapitalists are engaging in ever more climate cynicism.
==
Update, April 28:
Yale Climate Connections has several people who have told them, in essence, "but on the other hand." Let's take a look.
Peter Newman, a professor of sustainability at Australia’s Curtin University, was one of three coordinating lead authors for the transport chapter of the IPCC Working Group III report. In an email, Newman expressed concern about what the chapter referred to as “minimal commitment to new technologies” within the shipping and aviation sectors.
“Most of the people I respect in the international transport space say that the IMO and ICAO [International Civil Aviation Organization] are doing as little as possible and are trying to make it look like they are doing a lot,” Newman said. “They have not been funding the kind of R&D that was done on land transport. I think they are not doing nearly enough to help avert a major global climate crisis.”
More than 30 institutions that finance more than 80% of global shipping are signatories to the Poseidon Principles, which call for assessing and disclosing how closely the financial infrastructure of shipping is in line with adopted climate goals. “The setting of a global levy on international shipping’s emissions is a historic event,” said Poseidon Principles chair Michael Parker in a press statement. Acknowledging that the draft IMO agreement is “disappointing to many,” Parker added, “it will set in process a framework and methodology that can be built upon.”
“The shipping sector’s first binding emissions targets are laudable, but not enough to drive needed investments,” said the nonprofit Global Maritime Forum in a statement. “Uncertainties remain, as future revisions may be needed to ensure the zero-emission goals are met. National governments need to step up to bridge the cost difference between fossil and e-fuels, support the development of required infrastructure and fuel production, and ensure that more is done to promote the transition in the Global South.”
Per the rest of the story, modern big-money shipping needs more of a push to get it way from "bunker oil," the heavy fuel oil ships use.
Biofuel is not an answer, just as ethanol biofuel is not the answer for gasoline.
Ammonia would be better, but has the same issues as, say, natural gas replacing gasoline for cars, or hydrogen — compression and storage.
Not mentioned is the growing, though still small, use of sails with shipping. Also not mentioned is solar power, though where you put them on a container ship, I don't know. On a VLCC oil tanker, ironically, that's not a problem.
No comments:
Post a Comment