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Key developments
China missed 2024 targets
INTENSITY SLIP: China’s carbon intensity – its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per unit of economic output – only fell by 3.4% in 2024, “below its goal of 3.9%”, Reuters reported. Citing official data, it added that “fossil-fuel energy consumption per unit of economic growth [energy intensity] fell by 3.8% in 2024, beating an annual target of 2.5%”. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planner, attributed the shortfall to “rapid growth in the energy consumption in industries and the civilian sector as a result of post-Covid economic recovery and frequent extreme weather events”.
EMISSIONS RISE: The data showed China’s “fossil[-fuel related] CO2 emissions increased by 0.7%”, wrote Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), adding that China’s 2025 carbon-intensity target of an 18% cut on 2005 levels will now be “extremely hard to meet”. Yao Zhe, global policy advisor at Greenpeace East Asia, told Carbon Brief that changes to the energy-intensity methodology – which now only covers energy from fossil fuels – “may be a key reason” for its sharp drop in 2024.
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RECORD HEAT: China’s climate in 2024 was “generally poor”, the current affairs newspaper Guangming Daily reported in its coverage of China’s Climate Bulletin 2024, citing a China Meteorological Administration (CMA) official as saying extreme weather events were “more frequent and stronger”, partly due to “climate warming”. Xinhua said in its coverage that 2024 was the warmest year on record and that the number of “heavy rain” events was “four times higher than normal”.
STAYING THE COURSE: Meanwhile, China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) outlined a number of “key tasks” for 2025 in a new notice, Xinhua reported. These included adding 200 gigawatts (GW) of “new energy capacity” and for non-fossil energy to comprise 60% of capacity and 20% of consumption. (China’s solar association estimated that at least 215GW of solar alone will come online this year, Bloomberg said.) The NEA also aims in 2025 to increase total electricity generation to 10,600 terawatt-hours, Xinhua added. The notice stated that coal and gas production will “increase”. Echoing its earlier work conference, the NEA also listed a number of priority thematic tasks – first among these is to “strengthen” energy security, followed by “deepening” China’s energy transition.
Climate veteran returns to government
LI’S RETURN: The Ministry of Environment and Ecology (MEE) brought back former official and “climate diplomacy veteran” Li Gao as a vice-minister, replacing the outgoing Zhao Yingmin, Shanghai-based news outlet the Paper reported. Li, it added, joined MEE when it was formed in 2018 and was responsible for “organising China’s response to climate change”. Economic news outlet Caijing noted that one of the “most important” tasks awaiting Li will be “promoting” China’s voluntary carbon market (CCER), as well as “helping [to] finalise and publish” China’s next climate pledge (nationally determined contribution, NDC).
BLUE-SKY THINKING: MEE has pledged to “effectively eliminate severe air pollution by the end of 2025”, Reuters reported, by “ramp[ing] up efforts in pollution control and emissions reduction”. Part of this effort, it added, will be to “boost the share of new energy vehicles and machinery”. Other plans to reduce air pollution include addressing “clean heating, ultra-low emission transformation [and] volatile organic chemical controls”, the state-run newspaper China Daily said.
POLICY FLURRY: Meanwhile, MEE issued a new policy to improve innovation “in the field of ecological and environmental protection”, energy news outlet International Energy Net reported. China Daily reported MEE “unveiled two new [CCER] methodologies” for coal-mine gas and streetlights. The ministry will also establish mechanisms for “voluntary disclosure” of corporate greenhouse gas emissions by 2027, business news outlet EastMoney said. Elsewhere, China Daily reported on the ongoing “compilation” of China’s ecological code. The Communist party-affiliated People’s Daily said China released new guidelines on “green finance”.
China hosts IPCC meeting
HANGZHOU HUDDLE: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) held a meeting in China for the first time, the science-focused newspaper Science and Technology Daily reported. The outlet quoted CMA director Chen Zhenlin telling delegates gathered in the city of Hangzhou that China, as a “developing country”, is “actively” promoting a “comprehensive” energy transition. Chinese climate envoy Liu Zhenmin also said at the event that China is an “active contributor to IPCC reports and a diligent practitioner of scientific response to climate change”, according to Xinhua.
TIMELINE CONTROVERSY: The IPCC failed for a third time to agree on a timeline for the organisation’s seventh assessment cycle, Carbon Brief coverage of the event explained, although the outlines for several key reports were agreed. Climate Home cited unnamed delegates as saying there was a “disconnect between public statements from Chinese officials and negotiating positions in closed meetings”, which it said included pushing back against including the IPCC reports in the next “global stocktake”.
CLIMATE LEADER?: In response to a question about the US’ absence from the meeting, China’s foreign ministry said China will “fulfil its climate commitments and make active contributions” to climate action, the Paper reported. Elsewhere, COP30 president-designate Andre Aranha Correa do Lago told Reuters that “others may look to [China] for additional leadership” on climate change. These comments were not quoted by Xinhua, which only reported him saying: “We have to work even harder with China, because China has provided some excellent solutions to combat climate change.”
Trade frictions hit steel
INVESTMENT RESTRICTIONS: The US issued a memo on curbing Chinese investment into “tech, energy and other strategic American sectors”, Bloomberg reported. Separately, the US announced plans to impose an “additional 10% levy on goods from China”, BBC News said. Industry newspaper China Energy Net quoted the state-run trade association China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) saying the investment curbs will “disturb the security and stability of global supply chains”. Chinese president Xi Jinping told policymakers they must “calmly respond to challenges” Bloomberg said. However, the state-supporting Global Times said China may take “retaliatory measures” to the tariffs.
STEEL YOURSELVES: Vietnam, South Korea, India and the EU have revealed new “measures or plans” to curb their Chinese steel imports, Reuters reported, following earlier US tariffs. The “flurry of protectionism will pile pressure on Beijing” to scale back steel production, Bloomberg said. New CREA analysis covered separately by Bloomberg found that China would need to cut coal-based steel production capacity by 15% this year for mills “to meet their 2025 climate goals”.
BATTERY DIPLOMACY: China’s commerce ministry “hopes” for more “green industry cooperation with Europe”, including on electric vehicles (EVs), China Daily reported. Spain has urged the EU to “forge China policy without the US”, according to the Financial Times, which added that it recently received “two Chinese investments in lithium battery production”. Chinese firm CATL will work with Volkswagen on “EV battery research and development”, the Wall Street Journal said. Elsewhere, China and Nigeria have “signed a €7.6bn (£6.3bn) green hydrogen energy deal”, Nigerian newspaper the Nation reported.
Spotlight
What does the 2025 ‘government work report’ say about climate and energy?
China’s “two sessions” kicked off in Beijing this week, with Premier Li Qiang outlining the country’s main policy priorities in the 2025 “report on the work of the government”, widely known as the “government work report”.
Carbon Brief assesses what the report means for climate and energy policy this year.
Key meeting
The “two sessions” (两会) is the annual gathering of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). This year, it runs from 4 to 11 March.
Its centrepiece is the “government work report”, a speech delivered by the premier – the head of China’s State Council, the top body of the country’s central government. This outlines the previous year’s achievements and priorities for the year ahead, including the annual GDP target.
At the meeting, China also releases a report by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country’s top economic planning body, as well as a central and local government budget report.
Climate and energy policy
China pledged to reduce energy intensity – a measure of energy consumption per unit of GDP – by 3% in 2025, the report said. (Note that this measure now excludes renewables and nuclear, meaning it only applies to fossil fuels.)
This target means China will likely “miss its 14th five-year plan energy-intensity target”, Yao Zhe, global policy advisor at Greenpeace East Asia, told Carbon Brief. Analysis for Carbon Brief found that energy intensity would have needed to fall 6% in both 2024 and 2025.
Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), wrote on Bluesky that the target was “not strong”, adding that this showed the government “is not prioritising controlling CO2 [carbon dioxide] at the moment”.
He said the new methodology for calculating energy intensity would, in theory, allow fossil-fuel demand to grow by 1.9% in 2025, pushing CO2 emissions up by more than 2%.
The 14th five-year plan’s carbon-intensity target, which measures CO2 emissions per unit of GDP, will likely also be missed, according to the Carbon Brief analysis. China does not typically announce annual carbon-intensity targets in the “government work report”.
Priorities in 2025
China’s climate and energy policy in 2025 will likely follow well-established priorities, such as balancing decarbonisation and energy security, based on the report’s language.
The state-run newspaper China Daily highlighted the report’s support of China’s “dual-carbon” goals on its frontpage, saying that China pledged to “diligently work” towards them.
According to the report, China “will develop major projects for climate-change response and engage in and steer global environmental and climate governance”, it added
A number of climate measures were announced, but Li Shuo, director of the China climate hub and senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told Carbon Brief that there were “no major surprises”.
Climate and environmental protection remained a key priority. Renewable energy buildouts will continue, with a particular focus on “new energy bases in desert areas” and offshore wind. The report also recognised the need for China to upgrade its electricity grid to cope with vast renewables additions.
But the report also continued to commit to fossil-fuel infrastructure. This year, it said China will launch “low-carbon upgrade trials” for coal-fired power plants, which are seen as necessary for energy security. (Recent analysis found that a “substantial amount” of new coal capacity will soon come online.)
The separate NDRC report also reinforced coal’s position as a “baseline power source”, announcing that China will “continue to enhance coal production”, Reuters reported.
Consumption and ‘involution’
China’s approach to boosting growth includes a number of stimulus measures. The net impact of these measures on China’s emissions is currently unknown, however.
At this year’s meeting, the government stated that domestic consumption was a key “driving force” for economic growth.
In part, China is putting its hopes – and 300bn yuan ($41bn) – into a consumer trade-in programme, which will likely continue to allow drivers to swap combustion-engine cars for electric vehicles (EVs).
The report also pledged to incentivise “eco-friendly consumption”.
While technological innovation remained a major priority, clean-energy technologies were not explicitly mentioned in this context.
Last year’s “government work report” emphasised the need to “consolidate and enhance [China’s] leading position” in industries such as EVs and hydrogen, as well as to “create new ways of storing energy”.
Instead, this year’s report emphasised the need to combat “involution”, stating it will take “comprehensive” steps to address the problem. Involution refers to the overcrowded markets and price wars plaguing sectors, including EVs and solar panels.
Extreme weather
There was continued recognition of the drag of “natural disasters” on China’s economic growth, with the report pledging to “better guard against and respond” to floods, droughts, typhoons and other extreme weather events.
The “government work report” noted that floods “occurred frequently in some parts of China” last year. This was not explicitly linked to climate change.
However, the NDRC report attributed China’s failure to meet its energy intensity goal in 2024 in part to “frequent extreme weather events””.
A recent Carbon Brief analysis found that, of 114 attribution studies for Chinese extreme weather events, 88 had their “severity or likelihood” increased by climate change.
A full analysis of the climate and energy signals from the two sessions will be published by Carbon Brief after the meetings conclude on 11 March.
Watch, read, listen
HUMAN IMPACT: Shanghai-based current affairs outlet Sixth Tone released a two-part report on how extreme weather in Hunan province, and the government response, has affected some of China’s poorest citizens.
STOCKTAKE: The China consultancy Trivium China’s podcast hosted a wide-ranging discussion on Chinese climate policy, including the recent renewables pricing reform.
ENERGY SECURITY: The Wire China carried a wide-ranging interview with Anders Hove, senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, on China’s approach to energy security and other matters.
FINANCE LOOPHOLES: Perspectives Climate Research outlined how Chinese lenders could improve clean-energy lending and “close loopholes for continued fossil fuel support” in a new report supported by Peking University.
2028
The year in which China could peak its carbon emissions, meteorologist Dr Zhang Xiaoye, IPCC Working Group 1 co-chair, said at an event attended online by Carbon Brief.
New science
Impact of climate change on farmers’ crop production in China: a panel Ricardian analysis
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
A new paper concluded that the impact of climate change on Chinese farmers’ crop production is more pronounced for cash crops than grain crops, as well as affecting large farms more than small farms. The authors found that changes in temperature and rainfall “significantly impact” crop revenue, but that adaptation measures by farmers can partly reduce these effects.
Climate change is leading to an ecological trap in a migratory insect
PNAS
Climate change-induced changes in the East Asian summer monsoon are making seasonal migration a “riskier strategy” for the rice leafroller moth – a “severe pest of rice that annually invades the Lower Yangtze River Valley of China from winter-breeding areas further south” – according to a new study. This is resulting in “declining” pest pressure, the paper said.
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China Briefing is compiled by Wanyuan Song and Anika Patel. It is edited by Wanyuan Song and Dr Simon Evans. Please send tips and feedback to china@carbonbrief.org
The post China Briefing 6 March 2025: ‘Two sessions’ climate news; New vice-minister; Targets missed appeared first on Carbon Brief.
China Briefing 6 March 2025: ‘Two sessions’ climate news; New vice-minister; Targets missed
Climate Change
Cheniere Energy Received $370 Million IRS Windfall for Using LNG as ‘Alternative’ Fuel
The country’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas benefited from what critics say is a questionable IRS interpretation of tax credits.
Cheniere Energy, the largest producer and exporter of U.S. liquefied natural gas, received $370 million from the IRS in the first quarter of 2026, a payout that shipping experts, tax specialists and a U.S. senator say the company never should have received.
Cheniere Energy Received $370 Million IRS Windfall for Using LNG as ‘Alternative’ Fuel
Climate Change
DeBriefed 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’?
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Absolute State of the Union
‘DRILL, BABY’: US president Donald Trump “doubled down on his ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda” in his State of the Union (SOTU) address, said the Los Angeles Times. He “tout[ed] his support of the fossil-fuel industry and renew[ed] his focus on electricity affordability”, reported the Financial Times. Trump also attacked the “green new scam”, noted Carbon Brief’s SOTU tracker.
COAL REPRIEVE: Earlier in the week, the Trump administration had watered down limits on mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants, reported the Financial Times. It remains “unclear” if this will be enough to prevent the decline of coal power, said Bloomberg, in the face of lower-cost gas and renewables. Reuters noted that US coal plants are “ageing”.
OIL STAY: The US Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments brought by the oil industry in a “major lawsuit”, reported the New York Times. The newspaper said the firms are attempting to head off dozens of other lawsuits at state level, relating to their role in global warming.
SHIP-SHILLING: The Trump administration is working to “kill” a global carbon levy on shipping “permanently”, reported Politico, after succeeding in delaying the measure late last year. The Guardian said US “bullying” could be “paying off”, after Panama signalled it was reversing its support for the levy in a proposal submitted to the UN shipping body.
Around the world
- RARE EARTHS: The governments of Brazil and India signed a deal on rare earths, said the Times of India, as well as agreeing to collaborate on renewable energy.
- HEAT ROLLBACK: German homes will be allowed to continue installing gas and oil heating, under watered-down government plans covered by Clean Energy Wire.
- BRAZIL FLOODS: At least 53 people died in floods in the state of Minas Gerais, after some areas saw 170mm of rain in a few hours, reported CNN Brasil.
- ITALY’S ATTACK: Italy is calling for the EU to “suspend” its emissions trading system (ETS) ahead of a review later this year, said Politico.
- COOKSTOVE CREDITS: The first-ever carbon credits under the Paris Agreement have been issued to a cookstove project in Myanmar, said Climate Home News.
- SAUDI SOLAR: Turkey has signed a “major” solar deal that will see Saudi firm ACWA building 2 gigawatts in the country, according to Agence France-Presse.
$467 billion
The profits made by five major oil firms since prices spiked following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine four years ago, according to a report by Global Witness covered by BusinessGreen.
Latest climate research
- Claims about the “fingerprint” of human-caused climate change, made in a recent US Department of Energy report, are “factually incorrect” | AGU Advances
- Large lakes in the Congo Basin are releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from “immense ancient stores” | Nature Geoscience
- Shared Socioeconomic Pathways – scenarios used regularly in climate modelling – underrepresent “narratives explicitly centring on democratic principles such as participation, accountability and justice” | npj Climate Action
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
The constituency of Richard Tice MP, the climate-sceptic deputy leader of Reform UK, is the second-largest recipient of flood defence spending in England, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. Overall, the funding is disproportionately targeted at coastal and urban areas, many of which have Conservative or Liberal Democrat MPs.
Spotlight
Is there really a UK ‘greenlash’?
This week, after a historic Green Party byelection win, Carbon Brief looks at whether there really is a “greenlash” against climate policy in the UK.
Over the past year, the UK’s political consensus on climate change has been shattered.
Yet despite a sharp turn against climate action among right-wing politicians and right-leaning media outlets, UK public support for climate action remains strong.
Prof Federica Genovese, who studies climate politics at the University of Oxford, told Carbon Brief:
“The current ‘war’ on green policy is mostly driven by media and political elites, not by the public.”
Indeed, there is still a greater than two-to-one majority among the UK public in favour of the country’s legally binding target to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, as shown below.
Steve Akehurst, director of public-opinion research initiative Persuasion UK, also noted the growing divide between the public and “elites”. He told Carbon Brief:
“The biggest movement is, without doubt, in media and elite opinion. There is a bit more polarisation and opposition [to climate action] among voters, but it’s typically no more than 20-25% and mostly confined within core Reform voters.”
Conservative gear shift
For decades, the UK had enjoyed strong, cross-party political support for climate action.
Lord Deben, the Conservative peer and former chair of the Climate Change Committee, told Carbon Brief that the UK’s landmark 2008 Climate Change Act had been born of this cross-party consensus, saying “all parties supported it”.
Since their landslide loss at the 2024 election, however, the Conservatives have turned against the UK’s target of net-zero emissions by 2050, which they legislated for in 2019.
Curiously, while opposition to net-zero has surged among Conservative MPs, there is majority support for the target among those that plan to vote for the party, as shown below.
Dr Adam Corner, advisor to the Climate Barometer initiative that tracks public opinion on climate change, told Carbon Brief that those who currently plan to vote Reform are the only segment who “tend to be more opposed to net-zero goals”. He said:
“Despite the rise in hostile media coverage and the collapse of the political consensus, we find that public support for the net-zero by 2050 target is plateauing – not plummeting.”
Reform, which rejects the scientific evidence on global warming and campaigns against net-zero, has been leading the polls for a year. (However, it was comfortably beaten by the Greens in yesterday’s Gorton and Denton byelection.)
Corner acknowledged that “some of the anti-net zero noise…[is] showing up in our data”, adding:
“We see rising concerns about the near-term costs of policies and an uptick in people [falsely] attributing high energy bills to climate initiatives.”
But Akehurst said that, rather than a big fall in public support, there had been a drop in the “salience” of climate action:
“So many other issues [are] competing for their attention.”
UK newspapers published more editorials opposing climate action than supporting it for the first time on record in 2025, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
Global ‘greenlash’?
All of this sits against a challenging global backdrop, in which US president Donald Trump has been repeating climate-sceptic talking points and rolling back related policy.
At the same time, prominent figures have been calling for a change in climate strategy, sold variously as a “reset”, a “pivot”, as “realism”, or as “pragmatism”.
Genovese said that “far-right leaders have succeeded in the past 10 years in capturing net-zero as a poster child of things they are ‘fighting against’”.
She added that “much of this is fodder for conservative media and this whole ecosystem is essentially driving what we call the ‘greenlash’”.
Corner said the “disconnect” between elite views and the wider public “can create problems” – for example, “MPs consistently underestimate support for renewables”. He added:
“There is clearly a risk that the public starts to disengage too, if not enough positive voices are countering the negative ones.”
Watch, read, listen
TRUMP’S ‘PETROSTATE’: The US is becoming a “petrostate” that will be “sicker and poorer”, wrote Financial Times associate editor Rana Forohaar.
RHETORIC VS REALITY: Despite a “political mood [that] has darkened”, there is “more green stuff being installed than ever”, said New York Times columnist David Wallace-Wells.
CHINA’S ‘REVOLUTION’: The BBC’s Climate Question podcast reported from China on the “green energy revolution” taking place in the country.
Coming up
- 2-6 March: UN Food and Agriculture Organization regional conference for Latin America and Caribbean, Brasília
- 3 March: UK spring statement
- 4-11 March: China’s “two sessions”
- 5 March: Nepal elections
Pick of the jobs
- The Guardian, senior reporter, climate justice | Salary: $123,000-$135,000. Location: New York or Washington DC
- China-Global South Project, non-resident fellow, climate change | Salary: Up to $1,000 a month. Location: Remote
- University of East Anglia, PhD in mobilising community-based climate action through co-designed sports and wellbeing interventions | Salary: Stipend (unknown amount). Location: Norwich, UK
- TABLE and the University of São Paulo, Brazil, postdoctoral researcher in food system narratives | Salary: Unknown. Location: Pirassununga, Brazil
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
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The post DeBriefed 27 February 2026: Trump’s fossil-fuel talk | Modi-Lula rare-earth pact | Is there a UK ‘greenlash’? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Seven Pacific island nations say they will demand heftier levies on global shipping emissions if opponents of a green deal for the industry succeed in reopening negotiations on the stalled accord.
The United States and Saudi Arabia persuaded countries not to grant final approval to the International Maritime Organization’s Net-Zero Framework (NZF) in October and they are now leading a drive for changes to the deal.
In a joint submission seen by Climate Home News, the seven climate-vulnerable Pacific countries said the framework was already a “fragile compromise”, and vowed to push for a universal levy on all ship emissions, as well as higher fees . The deal currently stipulates that fees will be charged when a vessel’s emissions exceed a certain level.
“For many countries, the NZF represents the absolute limit of what they can accept,” said the unpublished submission by Fiji, Kiribati, Vanuatu, Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands.
The countries said a universal levy and higher charges on shipping would raise more funds to enable a “just and equitable transition leaving no country behind”. They added, however, that “despite its many shortcomings”, the framework should be adopted later this year.
US allies want exemption for ‘transition fuels’
The previous attempt to adopt the framework failed after governments narrowly voted to postpone it by a year. Ahead of the vote, the US threatened governments and their officials with sanctions, tariffs and visa restrictions – and President Donald Trump called the framework a “Green New Scam Tax on Shipping”.
Since then, Liberia – an African nation with a major low-tax shipping registry headquartered in the US state of Virginia – has proposed a new measure under which, rather than staying fixed under the NZF, ships’ emissions intensity targets change depending on “demonstrated uptake” of both “low-carbon and zero-carbon fuels”.
The proposal places stringent conditions on what fuels are taken into consideration when setting these targets, stressing that the low- and zero-carbon fuels should be “scalable”, not cost more than 15% more than standard marine fuels and should be available at “sufficient ports worldwide”.
This proposal would not “penalise transitional fuels” like natural gas and biofuels, they said. In the last decade, the US has built a host of large liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals, which the Trump administration is lobbying other countries to purchase from.
The draft motion, seen by Climate Home News, was co-sponsored by US ally Argentina and also by Panama, a shipping hub whose canal the US has threatened to annex. Both countries voted with the US to postpone the last vote on adopting the framework.
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IMO head: Shipping decarbonisation “has started” despite green deal delay
Arsenio Dominguez said the shipping industry’s net zero emissions goal is not in dispute although countries have stalled on adopting a framework to reach it -
US-led alliance wins a year’s delay in adoption of green shipping deal
The IMO’s Net-Zero Framework will be up for approval again in October 2026, after the US and Saudi Arabia persuaded countries not to vote on it as planned
The IMO’s Panamanian head Arsenio Dominguez told reporters in January that changes to the framework were now possible.
“It is clear from what happened last year that we need to look into the concerns that have been expressed [and] … make sure that they are somehow addressed within the framework,” he said.
Patchwork of levies
While the European Union pushed firmly for the framework’s adoption, two of its shipping-reliant member states – Greece and Cyprus – abstained in October’s vote.
After a meeting between the Greek shipping minister and Saudi Arabia’s energy minister in January, Greece said a “common position” united Greece, Saudi Arabia and the US on the framework.
If the NZF or a similar instrument is not adopted, the IMO has warned that there will be a patchwork of differing regional levies on pollution – like the EU’s emissions trading system for ships visiting its ports – which will be complicated and expensive to comply with.
This would mean that only countries with their own levies and with lots of ships visiting their ports would raise funds, making it harder for other nations to fund green investments in their ports, seafarers and shipping companies. In contrast, under the NZF, revenues would be disbursed by the IMO to all nations based on set criteria.
Anais Rios, shipping policy officer from green campaign group Seas At Risk, told Climate Home News the proposal by the Pacific nations for a levy on all shipping emissions – not just those above a certain threshold – was “the most credible way to meet the IMO’s climate goals”.
“With geopolitics reframing climate policy, asking the IMO to reopen the discussion on the universal levy is the only way to decarbonise shipping whilst bringing revenue to manage impacts fairly,” Rios said.
“It is […] far stronger than the Net-Zero Framework that is currently on offer.”
The post Pacific nations want higher emissions charges if shipping talks reopen appeared first on Climate Home News.
Pacific nations want higher emissions charges if shipping talks reopen
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