“Delaying” tactics accusation refuted

The accusation came from the recent UK Select Committee for Energy and Climate Change report, which said shipping was simply trying evade more immediate regulation by calling for a global scheme, rather than being included in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme.

Mark Brownrigg, director general of the UK Chamber of Shipping told MJ that although the EU ETS has recently taken the aviation industry under its wing, aviation, by comparison, is fundamentally a point to point journey and relatively simple to administer.

“Shipping, on the other hand, isn’t bilateral, it’s multilateral,” he points out, and can have many stops on one string. He added, “Aside from requiring fiendishly complex regulation and potentially negative impact to European trade, fundamentally the regional Emissions Trading Scheme would be very easy to avoid.”

His colleague, David Balston, adds, “The reason this affects European short sea and ferries to a greater extent is simply that this sector spends most of its time in local waters.” He adds that other kinds of shipping might well find it easy to avoid some of the burden that might rightly accrue to them.

Mr Brownrigg went on to say that the earlier Committee on Climate Change report advised a global shipping agreement, and added there are two ideas that need further debate: one is centred on carbon trading, the other is a compensation levy. The Chamber has published two documents to show how either could work, although Mr Brownrigg admits there “is some political play” that needs to work itself out between the emerging and mature economies for the debate to move forward.