Press Release

European Parliament urges EU governments to include aviation and shipping in a strong Paris climate deal

September 14, 2015

The heads of 7 of the 8 political groups of the European Parliament's environment committee wrote today to the Environment Ministers of the 28 EU countries urging them to include international shipping and aviation in a global climate deal at Paris.

The heads of the political groups on the Environment Committee said: “To promote increased climate ambition from ICAO and IMO, like all the other sectors of the global economy, aviation and international shipping require an emissions reduction target. There is no reasonable excuse to continue exempting these two economy sectors from the global policy framework. Aviation and shipping need to contribute in the same way that is required of all UNFCCC Parties, large and small.”

The Environment Ministers of the 28 European member states will be meeting on 18 September to finalise the EU position for COP21.

Sotiris Raptis, clean shipping officer at sustainable transport group Transport & Environment, commented: “It’s simply fair to demand from two economic sectors with emissions the size of Germany and South Korea to reduce CO₂ emissions in line with keeping the global temperature increase below 2 degrees celsius. The IMO and ICAO have been procrastinating so far. The time for action has come.”

The European Parliament called last week for the establishment of an EU 2030 emissions reduction target for shipping and measures for the reduction of ships’ speed (slow steaming).

International aviation and shipping already account for up to 8% of the global climate change problem – if these two sectors were a country, they would rank in the top 10 list of biggest polluting nations in the world. Most importantly, their emissions are expected to grow by 2050 by 200-300% for aviation and 50-250% for shipping. Such increases would undermine efforts to limit the rise of global temperature to under 2 degrees.