EDF's defence of EU ETS international shipping proposal July 23, 2021

The EU announcement that it will now move to include international shipping in its regional ETS raises critical issues for both European States and NGOs. The question before both is the impact of this on the IMO debate on market based measures, now that it has finally agreed to debate the Marshall/Solomon Islands proposal for a universal GHG levy. Unlike the EU ETS, the levy can claim credibility as being ambitious and equitable.  

EDF's recent blog on this caught my eye this week (@ http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/2021/07/20/the-eu-has-the-power-to-bring-transformational-change-to-global-shipping/) and prompted this comment:

Hi EDF

Thanks for an interesting article. Can I ask you to publicly clarify EDF’s position on MBM’s for shipping and your comment that EU is being ambitious.

In our opinion, the EU ETS will have some limited impact on moving shipping toward decarbonisation, but is clearly inadequate for a 1.5 agenda and therefore fails the Paris Agreement test. In our opinion it also completely fails any test of equity and will serve to increase the technology gap between rich and poor.

You note the deficiencies in regard LNG but make no comment on the clear downsides for the rest of the world, in particular SIDS/LDCs. The EU proposal may have some legitimacy as a stick to pressure IMO to move faster on an international measure, however once effected it simply sets up an almost irreversible path to a patchwork of regional ETS that serve to return the revenues earned from the polluters directly to the coffers of the richest and most powerful states and denies them to the poorest and most vulnerable members of the international community. If these revenues are then reinvested by Europe in increasing the technology dominance of European industry, then it serves only to increase inequity. Given the blanket refusal of Europe and the rest of the rich world to pay its $100billion p.a., it becomes hard not to see this as neo-colonialism in its worst form.

The simple alternative would be for the EU to throw its full weight behind the proposal of the Marshall and Solomon Islands for a universal mandatory GHG levy, with its considerable revenue dedicated to ensuring a just and equitable transition for all – or are we just saving the planet so a few entitled states can prevail?

Big questions here for the large European NGO’s as to how you use your resources and leverage and for whose benefit in this debate.

Pete

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