Exchanging views with members of the Parliament´s Transport Committee on 10 November, Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said greenhouse gas emissions from ships have outpaced the total emissions cuts achieved by the EU in other sectors...
"The growth of GHG emissions in the maritime sector is undermining the EU efforts to reduce its overall GHG emissions", Connie Hedegaard said, before warning that "this diverging trend will become unsustainable." She indicated that the European Commission is currently working on its own proposal to tackle emissions in this sector which remains out of the scope of the Kyoto Protocol.

"An agreement at the global level remains the best way to address this issue", Hedegaard said. "However, despite our significant efforts at international level, emissions of existing ships remain unaddressed". The EU Executive will come up with concrete proposal if no international agreement is found by the end of the year. A study published by the IMO on 14 November reads that measures agreed at IMO level in July this year are likely to reduce global shipping emissions by 23% by 2030 compared to the business-as-usual scenario, but absolute emissions will continue to grow. This study assesses the effectiveness of both the Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) to apply to new ships from 2013 on and of the Ship Energy Efficiency Management Plan (SEEMP) applying to all vessels. Together the measures are expected to keep annual global shipping emissions to around 1,603 million tonnes in 2050, compared to the 2,000Mt-3,000Mt projected under a business-as-usual scenario. Current emissions are around 800Mt/year.

Connie Hedegaard stressed that "according to International Maritime Organisation (IMO) figures, implementing the existing low-carbon technical or operational measures could lead to annual fuel cost savings of between $46 billion $125 billion by 2020, but these net benefits are not taken by the industry probably due to market barriers."

In a press release published on 14 November, the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) - which represents all sectors and trades of the global shipping industry and over 80% of the world marchant fleet - argued that only the IMO should regulate CO2 emissions from ships, and warned against any unilateral EU action. ICS Secretary General, Peter Hinchliffe explained: “The international shipping industry is firmly committed to reducing its CO2 emissions by 20% by 2020, with significant further reductions thereafter. However, the Durban Climate Change Conference needs to give the IMO a clear mandate to continue its vital work to help us deliver further emission reductions through the development of Market Based Measures.”

Meanwhile, IMO officials welcomed plans to link market-based measures (MBMs) to the UN´s Green Climate Fund, as outlined in a report published on 8 September by NGOs Oxfam and WWF. This report argued that a proposed deal to apply a carbon price to international shipping should be at the heart of the agreement at the UN climate change conference of Durban. The report shows how the EU could broker a deal to tackle the huge and growing greenhouse gas emissions from ships and raise billions of dollars to help developing countries tackle climate change, without unfairly hitting their economies.