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Let’s end the debate: putting international shipping into the ETS is clearly legal
(EurActiv, 28 Jan 2021) Shipping companies are crying foul over EU plans to regulate the sector’s emissions. But the industry’s claim that new rules would break international law has no legal basis, write Faïg Abbasov and Aoife O’Leary.
Faïg Abbasov is shipping director with Transport & Environment, a clean mobility campaign group; Aoife O’Leary is director for international climate at the Environmental Defense Fund, a green NGO.
After thirty years of regulatory silence on international shipping emissions, the EU has now committed to act by extending its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to cover the maritime sector. Not surprisingly, much of the shipping industry is trying to prevent this by stoking trade tensions and raising international legal questions.
Their goal is ostensibly to scare the EU and member states against climate action on shipping. Politics aside, legally speaking, this is an incompetent effort to say the least. Here’s why.
The EU is amending its Monitoring, Reporting and Verification Regulation (MRV) for shipping emissions which requires all ships stopping at EU ports to provide information on their emissions. Some of the amendments would require those ships to actually reduce emissions on journeys to or from and within the EU.
EurActiv, 28 Jan 2021: Let’s end the debate: putting international shipping into the ETS is clearly legal
