FEPORT: Climate Change is Here

End of July, as wildfires raged across Southern Europe and North Africa, top UN climate scientists said that it was “virtually certain” that July 2023 will be the warmest on record.

Echoing that warning in New York, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said: “children swept away by monsoon rains, families running from the flames (and) workers collapsing in scorching heat.”…“Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning.”

In Geneva, scientists from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Change Service described conditions in July 2023 as “rather remarkable and unprecedented”.

It is also “more likely than not” that global average temperatures will temporarily exceed the 1.5°C threshold above pre-industrial levels “for at least one of the five years”, the WMO scientist continued.

In such an alarming context, one may think that the recent 2023 strategy agreed upon on the 7th of July by the United Nations’ Maritime Organization arrives a bit late. But the reality is that what happened in London is an important step in the right direction that deserves celebration.

Pushed by a significant part of the shipping industry, Member States sitting at IMO have finally agreed on targets. Net zero should be achieved by or around 2050 and a 20% reduction is envisaged for in 2030 (striving for 30%) while emissions should be reduced 70% by 2040 (striving for 80%).

By 2030, zero or near-zero GHG emission technologies, fuels and/or energy sources should reach an uptake of at least 5% (striving for 10%).

A goal-based marine fuel standard regulating a phased reduction of marine fuels’ GHG intensity is mentioned as one of the possible (to be agreed upon) mid-term measures, so it seems to be IMO’s intention to mirror the FuelEU system. Unfortunately, no global emissions trading system seems to be on the horizon.

FEPORT welcomes the agreed targets and more particularly the intention to adopt a global fuel standard. However, it is a missed opportunity that the strategy does not mention the need for a global emissions trading system that would prevent all risks of cargo diversion and distortion of competition between EU Member States and other countries not applying ETS.

FEPORT also supports the EU Commission’s Greening freight Transport package which includes proposals aiming at contributing to the target of cutting transport emissions by 90% by 2050 as this is consistent with the Green Deal and EU environmental ambitions and efforts to respect the Paris Agreement.

FEPORT believes that the approach chosen by the EU Commission in the proposed CountEmissionsEU Regulation, which aims to establish a common European framework for calculating GHG emissions of transport operations in the freight and passenger transport sector i.e. to let companies decide on a voluntary basis to adhere to the CountEU rules, is a good one.

Moreover, the reference to ISO 14083 standard in CountEmissionsEU proposal is very welcome as many companies are already implementing it.

The other proposals of the Greening Freight Transport package regarding rail represent an important opportunity for rail to become a real alternative and this one should not be missed.

Another long-awaited proposal, the revised Combined Transport Directive, is still missing to complete the package. FEPORT hopes that it will be published soon.

FEPORT members will examine thoroughly the content of each proposal in view of having meaningful discussions and positive contributions during the upcoming legislative processes.
Source: FEPORT