Is shipping heading for the ETS?

The proposed four options are:

• an emissions trading scheme, either part of or separate from the existing ETS
• setting up compensation funds whereby ship owners would be charged and the revenue redistributed to those affected by ships’ emissions
• a tax either on shipping fuel sold in the EU or on carbon emissions
• emissions reduction targets for each ship.

Input to the consultation will feed into a proposal on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from shipping that the Commission is planning to publish by the end of this year. T&E has said the EU should also include tackling ‘black carbon’ emissions from ships as part of this initiative.
The consultation runs until 12 April.

The EU has been threatening for almost a decade that it would take a European measure if the IMO failed to agree a scheme that would deliver meaningful greenhouse gas reductions from ships.

• A study by the Technical University of Denmark has produced figures showing that tankers and large cargo ships have become less fuel-efficient over the last 30-40 years and have thus ‘gone in the opposite direction of normal good ship design practice’.