Pacific Strong on Climate Negotiations, Aim for Net Zero: Analysis

 

Dr Tristan Smith is the Associate Professor at University College of London Energy Institute. 

The hard work and vocal leadership of Fiji and a number of Pacific countries has, once again, enabled major progress in climate negotiations. 

COP 26 started, just under a month ago, with the vast majority of countries, representing the majority of global Gas House Gas (GHG )emissions, signed up to ‘net zero’ targets. Most commonly targeting their national economies to emit net zero GHG by 2050. 

For the efforts made to achieve those targets not to be in vain, they need two international transport sectors, shipping and aviation, that most often lie outside of national GHG reduction commitments, to step up to commit to similar. 

In 2018, in direct response to calls initially made in 2015 by the late Tony deBrum, Foreign Minister to the Marshall Islands, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) adopted its first commitment to an absolute reduction in GHG emissions. 

Thanks to Pacific island nations’ strong leadership through the debates, this agreement pivoted a sector which as recently as 2015 was refusing (in the words of its secretary general) to limit its GHG emissions in any way.

Negotiations 

However, the negotiations only managed to secure vague language about phasing out emissions, and a specific target to reduce emissions by ‘at least’ 50 per cent by 2050. 

Since 2018, much of the shipping sector has embraced the challenge of decarbonising – not a trivial task to identify and then deploy a new fuel and associated technologies that enable substitution of 200+ million tonnes of oil that are used by the sector today. 

Just as investing in oil and coal production has become outlawed by much of society, the shipping industry faces large commercial risk through the energy transition if as a sector it is to avoid divestment, premature scrappage and loss of market. This is one reason the shipping industry was primarily supportive of a proposal led by Kiribati, Solomon Islands and Marshall Islands this summer for the IMO to clarify that it saw 2050 as the deadline for it to end its GHG emissions. 

Shipping industry 

Much of the shipping industry was strongly represented at COP 26 where a number of new decarbonisation initiatives were launched and calls for action at IMO, including commitment to zero GHG by 2050, were made. 

Despite negotiators from Fiji and many countries in the region arguing with the clear scientific evidence of the need for urgent GHG reductions by all sectors, and to increased levels of ambition, the Kiribati proposal was not adopted. 

In spite of support from US, UK and many other countries, support from European member states was withheld on arguments of process (this was not the right time to clarify the IMO’s ambition), support which would have created a majority. 

The debate around the proposal did however lead to countries expressing their views on the IMO’s ambition and created both a commitment by IMO to strengthen its ambition, and build major pressure on the process for strengthening. 

A majority of countries who spoke expressed a clear preference for IMO to decarbonise in line with the proposal by Kiribati, subscribing their support in a statement made by Tonga.The argument will be repeated another day, but primarily because of these Pacific countries, expectations have now been clearly set. Anything less than zero by 2050 would be a betrayal not just of the climate science and these countries fight for their survival, but of the debate just held at IMO.