Government negotiators at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) are likely to agree next week to put a price on at least some shipping emissions, with most of the money going to subsidise clean fuels and help ports and workers adjust to their use, sources close to the talks told Climate Home.
The negotiations in London run until April 11 – and nothing has yet been finally agreed. But governments are discussing the details of a proposal put forward by the talks’ Norwegian chair Sveinung Oftedal in an attempt to reach a compromise on the first such system for a global sector.
The proposal says that revenues raised for the new IMO Net Zero Fund should be spent within the shipping sector and its fuel supply chain.
It specifies that the money should be allocated to green fuels and the infrastructure and workers needed to transition to them, to protecting the maritime industry from climate change, and to addressing negative impacts from a carbon price on shipping emissions, such as food inflation caused by rising shipping costs.
A source with knowledge of the IMO discussions told Climate Home that “the predominant view is that how the revenue is spent has to be somehow connected to the sector”.
Climate campaigners – and some countries, particularly small island and African nations – had hoped that at least some of the revenue would be spent on climate action in developing countries outside the shipping sector, on things like solar panels, drought-resistant seeds and rebuilding roads destroyed by floods.
Last week, Kenyan climate envoy Ali Mohamed wrote in a piece for Climate Home that the money raised should “transcend the maritime sector” and support “broader climate projects” including in landlocked states.
But some other developing countries do not want this money – much of which will be paid by shipowners in their nations – to replace the climate finance that rich governments are supposed to provide under the UN climate convention.
Friederike Roder, director of the secretariat for the Global Solidarity Levies Task Force, a multi-government initiative looking into international taxes to support climate and development, told Climate Home, “we need a solidarity contribution” from shipping.
“Negotiations are still under way,” she said, adding that the IMO “still has the possibility to deliver a historic agreement which doesn’t leave anyone behind”.
Size of fund up for debate
While negotiators agree that international shipping emissions should be priced, they remain sharply divided on how much of a ship’s greenhouse gas pollution should be covered and how high the price should be. This will determine how much money goes into the IMO Net Zero Fund.
Shipowners will have to pay if they don’t reduce emissions by a certain percentage by set years.
The chair’s proposal is to use the targets agreed for global shipping in 2023 – a 20% reduction in emissions by 2030 and 70% by 2040.
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If a ship does not meet these targets, it will have to buy a permit known as a “remedial unit” from the IMO’s Net Zero Fund. This is likely to be several hundreds of dollars per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emitted above the agreed level.
There is likely to be another, more ambitious stretch target. This could be the emissions goals that governments agreed to “strive” for in 2023 – 30% by 2030 and 80% by 2040.
The penalty for not meeting these stretch goals will be much less than not meeting the basic goals. Fees of between $50 and $150 per tonne of CO2e have been discussed.
Price on all emissions?
The Marshall Islands wants these stretch goals to be 100%, starting as soon as the rules come into place in 2028 so that all emissions would be subject to a charge from that year. The Pacific nation’s envoy for maritime decarbonisation Albon Ishoda said a tax on all shipping emissions “remains on the table – and that’s essential”.
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Some fossil fuel-reliant nations and shipping-dependent emergent economies like Brazil, China and Saudi Arabia do not support such a levy, and last week island nations expressed fears that the EU was backing away from the idea.
“A growing bloc of countries, particularly from Africa, the Caribbean, Central America, and the Pacific, is united in its focus on delivering ambition and equity for the Global South,” Ishoda added. “But when it comes to equity, our voices continue to be ignored. I have real concerns that the package being shaped may not be one that truly protects the most vulnerable or ensures no one is left behind.”
The post Hopes fade for climate cash from carbon price on shipping appeared first on Climate Home News.
Next week, diplomats from around the world will descend on Yerevan, Armenia, to negotiate a series of decisions under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Between 19 and 30 October, 196 parties will gather to hammer out the precise wording of the dozens of legal texts that make up the decisions under the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the CBD.
This year’s summit is particularly significant, as it marks the halfway point between the agreement of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the deadline for achieving its targets.
The CBD has found that countries are currently not on track to meet 22 out of the framework’s 23 targets.
During the fortnight, delegates will also be negotiating decisions relating to the two supplemental protocols to the CBD: the Cartagena Protocol, which covers biosafety; and the Nagoya Protocol, which covers access and benefit-sharing for the use of genetic resources.
(The Cartagena and Nagoya Protocols, which are each governed by a “meeting of the parties”, or “MOP”, have fewer parties than the CBD as a whole, with 173 and 141, respectively.)
Carbon Brief is tracking the progress of countries towards consensus on dozens of negotiating texts using the interactive table below.
The tracker includes texts from the COP, as well as the MOPs for the Cartagena and Nagoya protocols. It also includes draft decisions from the most recent subsidiary body meetings, as these form the starting point for the negotiations in Yerevan.
The CBD has three subsidiary bodies: the subsidiary body on scientific, technical and technological advice (SBSTTA), the subsidiary body on implementation (SBI) and the subsidiary body on article 8(j) and other provisions (SB8J).
SB8J focuses on issues related to the Indigenous peoples and local communities. It was established at COP16 in Cali, Colombia, in 2024.
The first two columns of the interactive tracker list the topic of each agenda item and the relevant body, with subsequent columns including dates, page counts and links to the original documents.
The table is searchable and can be sorted using the arrows in the header.
Areas of disagreement in UN draft texts are denoted by square brackets. Counting the brackets in a particular iteration of a text therefore gives a sense of how far parties are from reaching consensus.
The bracket column is colour-coded, with dark green indicating a low number of brackets and red indicating a high number of brackets remaining.
Texts can also present parties with choices using “options” or alternatives (“alt”), which are counted together in the sixth column of the table.
The key discussions in Yerevan will centre around two agenda items in particular. The first is the global review, which will assess progress towards the GBF and make recommendations for accelerating action.
The second is finance, which can be separated into two parts: resource mobilisation and the financial mechanism. On resource mobilisation, biodiverse global south countries are likely to push for an increased amount of international finance for conservation.
Disagreement over the creation of the financial mechanism led to the suspension of COP16 in Cali in October 2024, as parties failed to find agreement on the mobilisation of finance before the end of the summit.
Global south countries want the establishment of a separate financial mechanism under the control of the CBD; global north countries largely prefer to maintain the existing mechanism, which sits under the Global Environment Facility.
At the resumed session of COP16 in Rome in early 2025, countries agreed on a roadmap that would lead to the establishment of a permanent mechanism.
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The post Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP17 biodiversity summit appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP17 biodiversity summit
A beacon of love
On an outer island of Fiji, two thousand nautical miles from Sydney, is a shining light of hope and resilience for our troubled world.
The island of Kioa is home to a Tuvaluan community who migrated from their atoll of Vaitupu in the late 1940s. It is a land of warm hearts, big smiles, and deep cultural roots; a place where the sound of a conch still summons the island together, where islanders paddle out to fish in carved outrigger canoes, and healthy happy children walk barefoot to school.
Here, culture is life. Kioans live sustainably through their traditional knowledge and practices. The island is alive with song, dance and the rhythms of a life tied to the tides, the winds, and the seasons.
Facing the future
Greenpeace has been lucky to have a relationship with Kioa for a number of years now, and we are continually learning from this remarkable community.
Last week, as part of our Voyaging Oceania project, we returned to the island. Our purpose was twofold —- to carry messages from the island to leaders gathering in Nadi this week for the Pacific Pre-COP, and to support the Kioa community in their efforts to improve water security for the island.
Unlike Tuvalu itself, with its eight atolls, Kioa is a mountainous, forested and richly fertile island. It will remain habitable far into the future. Kioans did not initially migrate from Vaitupu due to climate change, but the move was prophetic. They now have a lifeboat.
However, even Kioa faces challenges on our rapidly warming planet, in particular when it comes to water. Climate change is shifting once reliable rainfall patterns. On top of this, the island is already feeling the effect of this year’s intensifying El Niño event, which for Fiji means reduced rainfall and prolonged dry spells.
Right now, fresh water has to be carefully rationed, and is only available for a few hours a day. During last week’s visit aboard our campaigning ship Oceania, Greenpeace was privileged to work with the Kioa community on a new solar-powered water distribution project for the island.
Designed and led by the island, the project involves using a solar pump to move water from a reliable source to a storage tank and then using gravity to distribute the water around the village.
It was a lesson in how local knowledge and ingenuity can be the backbone of today’s climate solutions. To build a dam around the source, the local community knew the exact spot where they could gather gravel at low tide to mix with the cement. They took only what was needed, knowing that all resources must be carefully conserved. Kioa has no roads and no machinery, and it was an all-of-island effort to carry the materials up to the project site, including many heavy bags of sand and rock.
Such projects truly bring to life the vision of a resilient, locally-led, fossil fuel free Pacific.
Gallery photos taken by Raeed Ali, Pacific Community Mobiliser at Greenpeace Australia Pacific
Voices of wisdom
During our four precious days on Kioa, Greenpeace’s Pacific team sat with the island’s elders as they shared stories and experiences for us to carry with us to the Pre-COP. During a fun filled morning at the island’s school, Kioa’s children shared what they love about their life on Kioa and what they want to see nourished and protected. They wrote these messages on flags which will fly proudly from Oceania in Nadi.