QUANTIFYING THE CLIMATE CHALLENGE FOR SHIPPING: FROM INCREMENTAL TO STEP CHANGE MITIGATION

摘要: The language of ‘combating climate change’and making a ‘transition to low-carbon technologies’ is increasingly evoked across all sectors, including shipping. However, seldom is the scale of emissionsreductions quantified in relation to national commitments and international obligations on climate change. Consequently, sectoral emissions are typically guided by vague responses rather than scientifically-informed quantification of the scale and timeframe of emission reductions. With specific focus on shipping, this paper disaggregates global emission profiles to provide an evidence-based suite of quantified emissions pathways for the sector. The UK Government’s position that “average global temperatures must rise no more than 2 C”, the EU commitment to “adopt the necessary domestic measures… to ensure temperature increases do not exceed 2 C” and the Copenhagen Accord’s pledge to “hold to… below 2 degrees Celsius” provide a consensual quantification of the climate change challenge. Allying this 2 C obligation with an accompanying range of ‘carbon’budgets permits quantified emission-reduction pathways to be developed. Against this backdrop alternative suites of absolute emissions reductions from international shipping can be explored and the implications quantified. If shipping is to make its fair contribution to tackling climate change it must develop carbon reduction technologies and practices in line with Global, EU and UK commitments on 2 C. Such an evidence-based framing of shipping emissions raises fundamental and difficult questions for the sector. Does it continue with a well-meaning but ultimately uninformed …