Air and ocean sectors remain committed to emissions reduction goals

While the recently announced climate deal by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is being widely recognized as significant accomplishment, it appeared odd in the sense that it did not directly address emissions reduction mandates or objectives from various transportation modes.

One of the key aspects of the deal requires each of the 186 participating countries in the deal to offer up their plans focused on how to reduce carbon emissions through 2025 or 2030, with the objective to cut emissions in half the levels that are required to ward off the worst effects of global warming, and to reconvene every five years with their respective updated plans that would tighten their emissions cuts, according to a New York Times report. The report added that countries will also be legally required to reconvene every five years starting in 2023 to publicly report on how they are doing in cutting emissions compared to their plans, as well as be legally required to monitor and report on their emissions levels and reductions, using a universal accounting system.

Even through transportation modes were not cited in terms of what they would specifically need to do in order to be in compliance with the deal, that does not mean they are not committed to reducing emissions either.

On the ocean freight side, the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) said that the shipping industry remains committed to CO2 emissions reduction across the entire word merchant fleet in the form of reducing CO2 per-tonne-km by at least 50 percent before 2050 compared to 2007.

What’s more, ICS said that it is expected to have “meaningful discussions” at a meeting of IMO (International Maritime Organization) states in April 2016, with a focus on agreeing to a CO2 reduction target for ocean shipping along with a global CO2 data collection system for ships.

ICS also cited the Paris Agreement’s lack of an acknowledgement of the importance of ocean shipping, in the form of explicit text referring to international shipping, which was hoped for at the beginning of negotiations. What it was specifically hoping for was
an acknowledgment of the importance of IMO continuing to develop further CO2 reduction measures, applicable to all internationally trading ships, and implemented and enforced in a uniform and global manner. 

“Time finally ran out to agree a compromise on international transport acceptable to all nations, but nothing is really lost,” said Peter Hinchliffe, ICS Secretary General.  “No text is probably preferable to some of the well intentioned words being proposed at the very end of the Conference which few people understood and which could have actually greatly complicated further progress at IMO. The Member States at IMO are the same nations that were present in Paris, but with officials that have a deep level of maritime expertise.  Intensive work at IMO will continue with the global shipping industry’s full support.” 

Like the ocean freight sector, the air cargo sector also noted how it was not specifically addressed in the Paris Agreement, with the Air Transport Action Group calling it an ambitious and far-reaching response by governments for dealing with climate change, even though air, along with ocean, emissions reduction objectives had appeared in previous drafts.

And it made clear that the International Civil Aviation Organiztion remains fully focused on addressing aviation and climate change without direction from the Paris Agreement, focusing in halving CO2 emissions by 2050.

Even though specific transportation modes were not addressed, they are fully determined to their respective goals of emissions reduction.

As for how it relates to the supply chain going forward is still to be determined. That was made clear by Adrian Gonzalez, president of Boston-based Adelante SCM.

“It’s too soon to know what impact this will have on supply chain in the near term, but considering that the agreement is voluntary and there are no enforcement mechanisms in place, my sense is that very little will change over the next twelve months,” he told me.

Countries and companies that have already embraced sustainability (such as Walmart and Unilever) will continue to lead the way, while everyone else will wait for binding laws and regulations to emerge before taking meaningful action, according to Gonzalez. 

As for shipping and aviation, two industries with significant greenhouse gas emissions, are not included in agreement, he said “the ball is in the court of those industries and their governing bodies” to come up with their own goals and plans.

That appears to be already happening with some ambitious goals for certain. While the ink is barely dry from the Paris Agreement, things appear to at least be heading in the right direction, especially when compared to the failed negotiations held in Copenhagen a few years back.