MPs call for tougher action on shipping emissions

The government will today face calls to "show more determined leadership" in its efforts to curb carbon emissions from international shipping, following the publication of a new report from the Environmental Audit Select Committee of MPs that accuses of ministers of sidelining the issue.

The report argues that international shipping accounts for three per cent of global carbon emissions and while shipping represents a carbon efficient mode of transport, government figures suggest that were the UK's share of shipping emissions to be taken into account the country's carbon output might not have fallen at all since 1990.

Committee chairman Tim Yeo MP said that the government was guilty of failing to "give this issue the attention it deserves" and accused the global shipping industry of prevaricating in its attempts to deliver a deal to curb emissions.

"The shipping industry accepts the seriousness of climate change but has taken little or no action to cut its own emissions in absolute terms," he said.

The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has been undertaking a series of talks designed to deliver an international deal to curb the sector's carbon emissions with the latest round of negotiations scheduled to take place this summer.

IMO representatives have signalled that they are confident a deal can be reached, arguing that the industry increasingly accepts that some form of regulatory regime, such as a cap-and-trade scheme or tax on fuel, will be required.

The organisation also released a report last month which concluded that some form of carbon pricing scheme could prove cost effective and outlining how the sector could cut emissions by a fifth at no net cost to the industry.

But the Select Committee report expresses scepticism that the IMO will reach an agreement on how to implement a global regulatory framework ahead of the UN's climate change talks in Copenhagen, and as a result calls on the government to step up pressure to include shipping in EU carbon targets.

It also recommends that ministers clarify whether or not they support the development of an emissions trading scheme for the shipping sector, and urges the government to develop a more accurate methodology for measuring the UK's shipping emissions and investigate whether it should introduce a scheme that would charge higher port dues to the most polluting ships.

The report comes just days after Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon lobbied counterparts from other countries gathered at an international conference in Leipzig to agree to include emissions from international shipping and aviation as part of any global climate change deal agreed in Copenhagen later this year.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said that the government was pushing for global sectoral emissions targets covering both aviation and shipping to be set at a level designed to limit global warming to less to two degrees above pre-industrial levels.