John Taukave is technical and cultural adviser to Pacific delegations of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a Rotuman performing artist and a doctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam.
When a little-known UN agency meets in London this month to adopt a deal to cut shipping emissions, it will be up to governments to turn July’s groundbreaking ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) into concrete climate action.
For us, people living in small island states across Oceania, shipping is not a distant, abstract sector – it is our lifeline. Vessels bring medicine and food, while ensuring a connection with the rest of the world. But global shipping is also a major source of emissions, which the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has a duty to address.
October’s IMO meeting is a critical test of whether countries will heed the ICJ ruling by embedding its principles into the Net-Zero Framework, a legally binding regulation that represents the world’s first truly global emission pricing mechanism.
In April, the IMO made world headlines when governments agreed the draft Framework after a long and painstaking negotiating process, and the agreement now needs to be formally adopted in October for it to enter into force in 2027.
Gaps and loopholes
Despite marking a huge achievement in global cooperation and multilateralism, there are still many gaps in the Framework that need to be clarified for it to deliver on the climate action we need, however.
The deal has been criticised by our countries – which abstained in the vote in April in protest – and climate experts, who have said it is too weak, too slow and riddled with loopholes.
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Shipping’s climate deal sets up battle over pollution calculations for gas and biofuels
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Ship owners who fail to reduce emissions intensity 30% by 2035 will have to pay into a “net zero fund” to clean up shipping through green fuels
Some critics have argued that the Framework risks becoming a “pay-to-pollute” system, allowing wealthy operators to carry on business as usual while we continue to bear the brunt of rising seas.
Oceania states have long been pushing for a flat emission fee on shipping, or a carbon levy, at the IMO, which would bring this sector much closer to the Paris Agreement as well as help drive the most cost-effective clean energy transition.
A first step
But if the scheme is flawed, the answer is not to undermine it, but to strengthen it – in the spirit of the ICJ ruling, which we will carry with us at the IMO. I believe the IMO Net-Zero Framework, if adopted, is just a first step.
The most important element is to guarantee shipping’s green transition is fair and equitable. This will require that the revenues collected from the carbon pricing, worth up to $15 billion a year in 2030, are allocated in a way that prioritises climate-vulnerable countries and those most affected by the impacts of climate change and can help us build climate-resilient transport and shipping systems we can depend on.
The Framework must also incentivise real, long-term clean energy solutions, like renewably produced e-fuels and wind technologies. Without these incentives, the IMO risks locking shipping into cheap and unsustainable alternatives like high-risk biofuels or climate-heating liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Rising seas and climate reality
International climate negotiations are often riddled with the challenge of bringing our stories and perspectives to a rigid world of suits, spreadsheets and square brackets. By participating in climate diplomacy events, I share the voices of my Temamfua – ancestors in the native Rotuman language – and share with them about my Ö’hön, which means both mother and Mother Earth, and how we keep mistreating our Ö’hön, yet she keeps loving us back.
Climate change is a lived reality for us, the people of Oceania.
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When I followed the proclamation of the Hague court’s ruling in July, I thought of our family house in Malha’a, on my home island of Rotuma, Fiji, and the vast nearby beach that has steadily disappeared under the waves over the years. I thought of children in Kiribati studying the maps of islands they can no longer walk upon, and of the saltwater in our wells and reefs bleaching.
That is why the ICJ’s ruling was a moral victory that affirmed what we have always known and fought for: climate action is a binding legal obligation for all states. High-emitting countries have the responsibility to mitigate climate change and can no longer hide behind claims of sovereignty or economic difficulty.
When we meet in London again this month, I hope delegates remember that behind their debates and arguments on metrics and fuel standards stand real islands, real peoples and real futures. The ICJ has given us legal recognition. Whatever IMO member states decide, I will stand strong with fellow peoples of Oceania to remind states of their obligations under international law.
The post Landmark ICJ climate ruling must be turned into concrete action on shipping appeared first on Climate Home News.
Landmark ICJ climate ruling must be turned into concrete action on shipping
Climate Change
Revealed: Scientists tell Colombia fossil-fuel transition summit to ‘halt new expansion’
Countries attending a first-of-its-kind fossil-fuel summit have been asked to consider “action recommendations” such as “halting all new fossil-fuel expansion” and “reject[ing] gas as a bridging fuel”, according to a preliminary scientific report seen by Carbon Brief.
Around 50 nations will gather in Santa Marta, Colombia from 24-29 April to debate ways to “transition away” from fossil fuels, in the face of worsening climate change and sky-high oil prices.
The talks come after a large group of nations campaigned for, but ultimately failed, to get all countries to formally agree to a “roadmap” away from fossil fuels at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil in November.
The nations gathering in Santa Marta for the summit co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands, call themselves the “coalition of the willing”.
Ahead of country officials arriving in Santa Marta, a global group of academics will gather in the city this week to present and discuss the latest scientific evidence on fossil-fuel phaseout, which will then inform debate among policymakers.
A preliminary scientific “synthesis report” circulated to governments attending the talks and seen by Carbon Brief offers 12 “action insights” for countries to consider, along with a wide range of “action recommendations”.
These recommendations range from “phase out subsidies on fossil-fuel production and consumption” to “kick-start a forum to develop a legal framework to ban fossil-fuel advertisements”.
‘Rapid’ assessment
The preliminary scientific report seen by Carbon Brief – titled, “Action insights for the Santa Marta process” – is the result of some rapid work by an “ad-hoc” group of around 24 scientists.
It is designed to present governments attending the talks with concrete and actionable recommendations for transitioning away from fossil fuels.
The preliminary version, which includes recommendations such as “halting all new fossil fuel expansion”, has already been circulated to governments, with a view that this could help them to prepare for the talks in advance.
It will be further debated and refined by scientists attending the academic segment of the Santa Marta talks, before a final version is made public towards the end of April, Carbon Brief understands.
The process to produce the report began shortly after the conclusion of the COP30 climate summit in Brazil in November, explains its lead author, Dr Friedrich Bohn, a research scientist and co-founder of the Earth Resilience Institute in Germany. He tells Carbon Brief:
“When [Brazil] announced there would be a Santa Marta conference led by Colombia and the Netherlands, I was sitting listening with a small group of scientists. We thought: ‘This is great news, but it should be supported by scientific expertise.’”
One of the members of Bohn’s group had a pre-existing relationship with the Colombian government, allowing a dialogue to quickly be established, he continues:
“In the beginning, the idea was to just write a peer-reviewed paper. But, because of this close connection to the Colombian government and some feedback from them, the synthesis paper evolved.”
The report came out of a “very rapidly evolved process” that relied on the “goodwill” and “enthusiasm” of the academics involved, adds coordinating author Prof Frank Jotzo, a professor of climate change economics at Australian National University. (Jotzo is a former Carbon Brief contributing editor.) He tells Carbon Brief:
“It’s an attempt to get broad coverage on relevant topics from researchers with good expertise and reputation.”
The group of 24 scientists involved spent around two months compiling the “action insights” for the report, drawing on their expertise and the latest available research, says Jotzo.
Given the rapid nature of the report, it does not aim to be “completist”, has not been externally reviewed and did not follow a stringent process for author selection comparable to that used by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, he adds.
The contributors to the report currently skew to the global north and include more men than women, adds Bohn.
‘Direct guidance’
In a departure from IPCC reports, the preliminary Santa Marta synthesis report offers “very direct guidance to action”, says Jotzo.
The report lists 12 “action insights”, each with three “action recommendations”. (The list was cut down from a shortlist of about 40-50 insights, Carbon Brief understands.)
One of the most striking in the draft is “action insight 5”, which says:
“Take immediate measures to prevent future emissions. Ban new fossil infrastructure, mandate deep methane cuts, accelerate electrification and inscribe fossil-fuel phase-down targets in NDCs [nationally determined contributions] and clean-energy pathways support to low and middle income countries (LMICs).”
The accompanying three “action recommendations” include “halting all new fossil-fuel extraction and infrastructure projects ahead of a final investment decision”, “implementing deep, legally binding methane cuts in the energy sector” and “inscrib[ing] targets for fossil-fuel phase down, electrification and green exports in NDCs”.
(The draft report includes multiple references to “phasing out” and “phasing down” fossil fuels, rather than the “transition away from fossil fuels” language that was, ultimately, agreed by countries at the COP28 UN climate talks in Dubai in 2023.)
Another action insight says “public support for climate action is broadly underestimated and undermined by interest groups, but it can be strengthened by debunking greenwashing narratives”.
One recommendation for this insight is that nations “reject natural gas as a bridging technology and CCS [carbon capture and storage] techniques as scalable compensation”.
In a letter introducing the report to governments and civil society, the scientists note that making direct recommendations is a “challenge for our community”, but added:
“However, in the spirit of a constructive collaboration between science and policymaking, we allowed ourselves to identify some potential courses of action that our community would recommend for each particular issue – and we invite you to weigh these against your own circumstances and pick up whatever seems most useful for you and your colleagues.”
The prescriptiveness of the recommendations – something strictly prohibited in IPCC reports – was an explicit request from the Colombian government, Bohn says:
“The idea of actionable recommendations was introduced by the Colombian government.
“There was some discussion within the team about this. It’s a tricky area when you leave science and move to consultation. Therefore, we agreed, in the end, to call them ‘actionable recommendations’ and to make them as precise as possible, from the scientific perspective.”
Jotzo, a veteran of the IPCC process, tells Carbon Brief that it was “very liberating” to work on a report with a “free-form process”:
“The bulk of policy-related research is very readily deployed to recommendations pointing out what countries could do. The IPCC process, for example, just doesn’t allow that. As far as the summary for policymakers in the IPCC is concerned, it will usually be governments that filter out anything that could be interpreted as a specific recommendation.”
He adds that the hope is that some of the action insights might be reflected in the high-level segment of the Santa Marta conference:
“No one is under any illusions that governments will walk away from the Santa Marta conference and will have made a decision to implement recommendations one, seven and nine – or something like that. But it is a chance to insert directly applicable action points into national and plurilateral policy agendas.”
Colombia calling
The preliminary report will be further debated and refined by scientists attending the “pre-academic segment” of the Santa Marta talks.
This is taking place from 24-26 April, ahead of the “high-level segment” involving ministers and other policymakers from 28-29 April.
The pre-academic segment will also separately see the launch of a new advisory panel on fossil-fuel transition and a scientifically led roadmap for how Colombia can transition away from fossil fuels, Carbon Brief understands.
The high-level segment is expected to be attended by representatives from around 50 countries, including COP31 host Turkey and major oil-and-gas producers such as the UK, Canada, Australia, Brazil and Norway.
Countries expected to attend account for one-third of global fossil-fuel demand and one-fifth of global production, according to the Colombian government.
At the end of the conference, countries are due to release a report featuring a “menu of solutions” for transitioning away from fossil fuels, according to Colombia’s environment minister Irene Vélez Torres.
This report is in turn set to inform a global “roadmap” on transitioning away from fossil fuels being developed by the Brazilian COP30 presidency, which is due to be presented at COP31 in Turkey this November.
The Brazilian COP30 presidency offered to bring forward a “voluntary” fossil-fuel transition “roadmap” outside of the official COP process, after countries failed to formally agree to one during negotiations in Belém.
The post Revealed: Scientists tell Colombia fossil-fuel transition summit to ‘halt new expansion’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Revealed: Scientists tell Colombia fossil-fuel transition summit to ‘halt new expansion’
Technical Assessment of Woodside’s Browse Pygmy Blue Whale Management Plan
To secure their approvals, Woodside had to develop a plan for how they would manage the significant risks to threatened green turtles if the project proceeds. We’ve had two independent scientists provide a technical assessment of Woodside’s management plan for whales and turtles and their findings are gobsmacking.
Woodside’s Browse gas project could make Scott Reef’s unique green turtles extinct.
Woodside’s Browse gas project could delay or prevent the population recovery of the endangered pygmy blue whales that rely on Scott Reef, heightening their extinction risk.
Technical Assessment of Woodside’s Browse Turtle Management Plan
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Reporting for this story was supported by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.
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