A major ocean conference has ended in Mombasa, Kenya, with just a handful of countries committing to high-level political declarations on banning deep-sea mining, protecting climate-resilient coral reefs and combatting illegal fishing.
The Our Ocean Conference (OOC) brought together more than 5,000 delegates to discuss marine issues and make voluntary commitments to advance ocean sustainability.
It was the first time in the conference’s 11 editions that it had been held on African soil.
African countries played an “important leadership role” at the talks, observers told Carbon Brief, helping to drive ambition on fisheries transparency, a precautionary pause on deep-sea mining and developing proposals for marine protected areas on the high seas.
Across the three-day conference, attendees also made 320 separate commitments, including new funding for scientific research, improving waste-management programmes to reduce marine pollution and mapping Indigenous groups’ customary waters.
Some of these commitments were accompanied by announcements of new funding, with a total of $6.4bn “mobilised” across all pledges.
Several non-governmental organisations also released new reports during the conference, on topics ranging from the implementation of marine protected areas to “climate-resilient” coral reefs.
Observers told Carbon Brief that the commitments and discussions at the conference were “positive steps”, but added that these pledges must now be backed up by action.
During the opening ceremony, former US secretary of state John Kerry urged delegates to move “from commitments to implementation”.
Here, Carbon Brief outlines the key takeaways from the OOC across five major climate-related topics.
Background
The OOC was first held in Washington DC in 2014, where it was championed by Kerry.
The conference aims to “identify action-based solutions and make tangible commitments” towards addressing key issues facing the ocean, such as climate change and overfishing. It does so through voluntary commitments made by governments, non-governmental organisations, civil society groups and others.
These commitments align with the six “pillars” of the conference:
- The ocean-climate nexus
- Marine pollution
- Marine protected areas
- Maritime security
- Sustainable blue economy
- Sustainable fisheries
Since then, the conference has been held annually (with the exceptions of 2020 and 2021 during the Covid pandemic), with the host city changing every year.
Each edition of the conference is very different, attendees told Carbon Brief, and the host country plays a large role in setting the conference’s priorities.
For example, at the 2024 conference, held in Athens, Greece, shipping and sustainable tourism were discussed at length alongside the six existing pillars.
At this year’s summit, extra attention was paid to the roles of local communities in achieving a “healthy” ocean.
Since 2025, the conference has had its own dedicated secretariat, hosted at the research organisation, the World Resources Institute (WRI). (Prior to that, the US Department of State acted as the de-facto secretariat.)
Conference participants told Carbon Brief that the OOC has been “highly successful” in achieving its aims over the past decade.
An analysis of the first 10 years of the conference, published by WRI in 2025, found that of a total 2,618 commitments made at the OOC, around 1,130 had been completed and a further 1,005 were in progress.
In Mombasa this year, 104 countries and organisations made a total of 320 voluntary commitments. More than one-quarter of these commitments were made in the “sustainable blue economy” action area.
According to the preliminary report released by the secretariat at the conclusion of the OOC, the commitments made at the conference represent $6.4bn in “mobilised” finance. However, it is unclear from the report how much of this figure is new committed funding.
Marine protected areas
Marine protected areas (MPAs) are one of the six key action areas of the Our Ocean Conference.
A June 2026 independent assessment of the MPA-related commitments at previous editions of the OOC found that the conference has “made an outsized contribution to global marine conservation efforts”.
According to the analysis, more than one-third of the Earth’s MPAs stemmed from announcements made at the OOC – a total area of more than 10m square kilometres (km2).
This progress is the result of nearly two-thirds of MPA-related OOC commitments already fully implemented, the assessment says, while most of the remaining commitments “show evidence of progress”.
If all pledged MPAs were to be implemented, it would represent protection for around 14.4m km2 or 4% of the ocean.
The chart below shows the number of pledged actions related to MPAs and other area-based conservation methods that were pledged at the OOC between 2014 and 2025, coloured by the progress made on each commitment.
Several groups announced new MPAs – or the completion of previously announced MPA designations – at the OOC.
These included the establishment this year of two new MPAs in the Juan Fernández region of Chile, protecting a total of around 337,000km2 of ocean, and the approval of the Azores Marine Park, which will span 287,000km2 – making it the largest network of protected areas in the north Atlantic Ocean.
However, despite the progress made in designating MPAs, further work is needed to ensure that these areas are truly protected, experts told Carbon Brief in Mombasa.
A report released by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) at the summit detailed the “implementation gap” facing MPAs. It noted that “at least half of existing MPAs remain unimplemented or operationally ineffective”, while just 3.5% of the global ocean is “fully and highly” protected.
Closing this gap will require “inclusive, sustained and context-sensitive design, management and funding approaches”, continued the report.
Dr Ana Spalding, the director of STRI’s Adrienne Arsht community-based resilience solutions initiative, told Carbon Brief that, while MPAs are typically evaluated based on their biodiversity outcomes, the communities that rely on ocean ecosystems are also very important to consider. Focusing on just one aspect or the other will result in an MPA that is not effective, she added:
“There’s going to be a sweet spot between the two.”
High Seas Treaty
The Agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction – also known as the BBNJ Agreement or the High Seas Treaty – entered into force on 17 January 2026.
This followed the treaty, achieving the necessary 60 state ratifications on 19 September 2025. The week before the OOC, the east African nation of Comoros became the 90th party to ratify the agreement.
The first Conference of the Parties for the High Seas Treaty will be held in January 2027 in New York City. At that meeting, parties will be tasked with creating the rules of procedure, establishing the subsidiary bodies and carrying out other foundational work.
Because so many key decisions will be made at this COP1, it is “imperative” to have as many ratifications as possible before the conference begins, said Rebecca Hubbard, director of the High Seas Alliance, a coalition of non-governmental organisations that advocates for protection of the high seas. She added:
“We hope that well over 100 countries will be party to the agreement by COP1, so that they can be at the decision-making table.”
One of the key provisions of the High Seas Treaty is that it creates a mechanism for countries to establish MPAs in international waters. This will be key to achieving the “30 by 30” target of protecting 30% of the world’s land and oceans by 2030, Hubbard told Carbon Brief.
However, establishing a high-seas MPA under the agreement requires a thorough process, including a review by a scientific and technical subsidiary body, a consultation with parties and a vote by the COP. Thus, in order to achieve the “30 by 30” target, parties will need to act swiftly to begin the process of establishing high-seas MPAs, according to Hubbard. She said:
“It will be very, very tight. It’s definitely possible, but it requires really strong government leadership and prioritisation.”
She added that it is “essential” that governments begin forming proposals for high-seas MPAs before the COP meets in January, noting that some countries are already doing so.
At a side event on 16 June, representatives from South Africa and the EU detailed plans to propose a high-seas MPA that would link two existing protected areas in the sub-Antarctic – one South African and one French. Hubbard told Carbon Brief:
“That’s a really great example of what we can do with the High Seas Treaty – having developed and developing countries working together, sharing knowledge [and] developing scientific approaches together. I think that’s the hopeful future, collaboration [and] cooperation, that the High Seas Treaty really provides.”
Also at the summit, Senegal, Mauritania, the Gambia and Guinea-Bissau committed to creating “at least two” transboundary west African MPAs.
Deep-sea mining
Although deep-sea mining was not a major focus of the Mombasa talks, it did feature at several side events.
At a reception held by the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC), Prof Rashid Sumaila of the University of British Columbia said the “wrong question is being asked” about deep-sea mining. He continued:
“It’s not whether they have the minerals, it’s whether extracting them gives a net-positive impact.”
Sumaila added that evaluating the risk of deep-sea mining will require a cost-benefit analysis that is as “broad and inclusive as possible”.
At the same reception, the foreign-affairs minister of Malawi, Dr George Chaponda, announced the country’s support of a “precautionary pause” on seabed mining in international waters. This would prohibit mineral exploration in such areas until there is robust scientific evidence showing limited environmental harm.
In doing so, Malawi became the first African country to support such a pause – and the 41st country overall to support a precautionary pause or moratorium on the activity.
Chaponda told the assembled guests that Malawi’s existence as a landlocked country did not preclude its involvement in the deep-sea debates, urging:
“To my fellow landlocked states: geography does not diminish our stake in the ocean.”
Later in the week, Kenya and Madagascar also announced their support for such a pause.
In a statement, David Willima, the Africa lead at DSCC, said:
“The leadership shown by Malawi, Kenya and Madagascar sends a vital signal that African nations are stepping forward to defend the deep ocean and are unwilling to accept the risks of deep-sea mining.”
Coral reefs
At the third UN Ocean Conference (UNOC), held in Nice, France, in June 2025, 11 countries and several partner organisations launched the high-level commitment to protect “climate-resilient” coral reefs.
These are reefs that, according to scientists, have the “best chance of long-term survival in the face of climate change”.
(UNOC occurs every three years and is specifically focused on achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goal on sustainable ocean use. Unlike the OOC, UNOC results in a negotiated political declaration.)
A further four countries signed the commitment in Mombasa: Comoros, the Dominican Republic, Kenya and the UK. According to a representative at the launch event, the goal is to reach 31 signatories – representing 80% of the world’s coral cover – by COP31 in Turkey in November this year.
Signatory governments pledged their commitment to:
- Identifying climate-resilient reefs and prioritising their protection.
- Integrating coral-reef protection into national strategies and plans.
- Enacting policies to reduce the local pressures facing coral reefs, such as overfishing, pollution and overdevelopment.
- Implementing national reef monitoring programmes and action plans.
- Ensuring equity and working with local communities in protecting reefs.
The Mombasa conference also coincided with the presentation of a new study on climate-resilient reefs, covered in the 17 June edition of Carbon Brief’s Cropped newsletter. (The study is currently in the final stages of peer review.)
Building on a 2018 project that identified the 50 coral reefs that “form an optimal portfolio of reefs that are most likely to survive climate change”, the new work mapped more than 165,000km2 of coral reefs across 70 countries. These were found to have the best chances of persisting in the face of climate change and a warming, acidifying ocean.
Dr Emily Darling, director of coral-reef conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society and a co-author of the study, told Carbon Brief that “one of the key things countries can do that have these important reefs is elevate them into national policy” across multiple government sectors.
She added that learning from these reefs will become vital over the coming months as El Niño warms the world’s oceans even further.
Darling told Carbon Brief:
“Climate change is not a single blanket on the world’s oceans. There are a lot of pockets of resilience, there are pockets of revolution for corals, and it’s all about finding those places, and how do we support them through the other local pressures that they experience that we know we can manage.”
Although few monetary coral-related commitments were made at the summit, Norway pledged to allocate NOK 20m ($2m) to the Global Fund for Coral Reefs.
Fisheries
One of the major achievements of the summit was the adoption of the Mombasa Declaration to advance fisheries transparency and combat illegal fishing.
The declaration “recognise[s]” that illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a major factor driving the unsustainable use of ocean resources and the degradation of marine ecosystems.
The declaration, which was signed by 16 national governments – eight of them from Africa – commits parties to follow a set of principles laid out in the Global Charter for Fisheries Transparency. This was developed and promoted by a group of civil society organisations known as the Coalition for Fisheries Transparency.
The commitments in the Mombasa Declaration fall within four broad categories:
- Supporting transparency and accountability in the fishing industry.
- Strengthening monitoring of fishing activities and cooperating with enforcement actions.
- Building capacity and supporting implementation of transparency reforms.
- Strengthening ocean-observing systems and promoting the use of open-access data.
The declaration notes that these principles should “apply to and benefit both small-scale and industrial fisheries” and support “broader ocean-management efforts”.
At a press conference announcing the launch of the declaration, Ghanaian fisheries and aquaculture minister Emelia Arthur called it a “global testament of our collective commitment to transparent fisheries”. She emphasised the importance of the sector to all aspects of life, saying:
“Fisheries is nutrition. Fisheries is food security. Fisheries is livelihoods. Fisheries is national security.”
Several civil society organisations, philanthropies, community groups and governments also made separate fisheries-related commitments at the summit.
The EU committed €46m ($52m) through its Horizon Europe research programme to fisheries work, including €32m ($36m) for “adaptive co-management strategies” and €14m ($16m) for research on conservation and sustainable management of migratory fishes.
The EU and Italy both also announced contributions to the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund.
The government of Kenya made nine fisheries-related pledges at the summit, including committing to train compliance officers dedicated to combatting IUU fishing, developing management plans for all of its commercial fisheries and establishing bycatch mitigation measures.
At the summit, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization launched its biannual “state of world fisheries and aquaculture” report.
According to the report, the world set a new record for fisheries and aquaculture in 2024 – producing a total of 235m tonnes of fish and algae. This total consisted of nearly 92m tonnes of fish from capture fisheries, 103m tonnes of farmed fish and 40m tonnes of algae production.
The amount of fish produced by capture fisheries has remained largely stable since 2000, while aquaculture production has increased by an average annual percentage rate of just under 5%, according to the report.
While the largest growth has occurred in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the vast majority of aquaculture production – 89% – occurs in Asia.
The report also says that more than one-third of the world’s marine fish stocks are overfished, with significant variation based on region and species. It adds that climate change may play an increasing role in driving the unsustainability of fisheries in the future:
“Despite the uncertainty of climate risks in the short, medium and long term, studies on the impacts of climate change on aquatic food systems around the world increasingly document the relevance and potential success of adaptation measures, urging decision-makers to integrate climate change considerations into fisheries and aquaculture planning and management.”
The post Mombasa: Key outcomes from the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Mombasa: Key outcomes from the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya
Global fossil-fuel emissions are set to fall by around 0.5% in 2026 amid the fallout from the Hormuz crisis, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
The US-Iran war has severely disrupted trade through the strait of Hormuz, causing a spike in oil and gas prices that continues to ripple around the global economy.
Each month of disruption – and each new flashpoint, such as in Yemen – is increasing the incentive to switch to alternatives.
Those alternatives include coal, with the latest forecasts pointing to a 1.2% rise in coal demand this year – apparently supporting media claims of a “return to coal” in the wake of the crisis.
Yet Carbon Brief’s analysis shows the rise in emissions associated with this increased coal use, much of which is unrelated to Hormuz, is set to be more than offset by declines for oil and gas.
The estimated overall impact on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels in 2026 is shown in the figure below and amounts to a reduction of around 0.5% from 2025 levels.
(Fossil fuels account for two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions.)
The emissions estimates for each fossil fuel are based on the latest forecasts from the International Energy Agency (IEA) for coal, oil and gas, in light of the ongoing global energy crisis.
For example, the agency initially estimated that global coal demand would decline this year. In its 2025 coal report, published in mid-December, it said that declining coal demand in China would outweigh the impact of pro-coal policies under US president Donald Trump.
In contrast, the latest update, published in September 2026, said that global coal demand would rise by 1.2% in 2026, instead of the small decline that had been expected.
The report highlighted the boost to coal demand from higher gas prices in the wake of Hormuz. However, there are limits to this, because few countries can switch from gas to coal at large scale.
The IEA’s latest report also noted the role of a strong El Niño, which is pushing up the need for cooling and depressing hydropower output in key markets. Other short-term factors are also affecting coal demand this year, including a rising amount of “wasted” wind and solar in China.
For gas, the IEA did not initially update its previous forecast that global gas demand would rise by 2.0% in 2026, which had been published in January of this year.
Its most recent forecast – published in July – already pointed to a 0.6% drop in demand in 2026. Since then, pressure on gas demand from high prices has only grown stronger.
For oil, there has been an even more dramatic shift in forecasts since the start of the year.
In its January 2026 oil market report, the IEA forecast a rise in demand in 2026 of 930,000 barrels per day (bpd). As shown in the figure below, this has been steadily revised downwards over the course of the year, as the Hormuz crisis was first ignited – and then extended.
By September, the IEA was forecasting a 2,500,000bpd drop in oil demand in 2026, equivalent to a reduction of 2.4% from 2025 levels.
(A 15 September research note from Morgan Stanley, not available online, found a “consensus” forecast of a 2,415,000bpd drop in demand in 2026.)
While there are many short-term factors at play in the shifting forecasts for 2026, it is clear that the latest energy crisis will also affect fossil-fuel demand in the next year and beyond.
For example, whereas the IEA initially forecast that oil demand would rebound in 2027 to well above 2025 levels, it is now expecting use of the fuel to be effectively flat for two years.
This puts a question mark over its previous expectation – published in October last year – that global oil demand would not peak until as late as 2030.
“For every month the conflict lasts, the probability of permanent [oil] demand destruction increases,” wrote Sverre Alvik, vice president at consultancy DNV in a late August analysis.
As fuel prices have surged, electric vehicles (EVs) have captured record shares of major car markets, from Australia and China through to Europe, Indonesia and Thailand.
In July, EV sales nearly doubled year-on-year in “new markets”, noted Alvik, pointing to countries outside China, Europe and North America.
The IEA says the 2027 outlooks for coal and gas are interdependent, with coal demand potentially increasing again if gas prices remain elevated – or dropping back if gas prices ease.
At the same time, governments in countries that had planned to rely on imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) have been signalling shifts towards favouring domestic clean energy instead – or continuing to use coal for longer.
The current crisis, therefore, has the potential to not only lower fossil-fuel use and emissions in the short term, but also on a more lasting basis.
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The post Analysis: Global fossil-fuel emissions set to fall in 2026 amid Hormuz crisis appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Global fossil-fuel emissions set to fall in 2026 amid Hormuz crisis
Aviation is on track to be responsible for 80% of the UK’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 2050, according to the Climate Change Committee (CCC).
Emissions from flying have more than doubled since 1990 – driven by rising passenger numbers – even as the climate impact of every other sector in the UK economy has fallen.
The UK does not have “credible” policies in place to reverse this trend of rising emissions, says the CCC in new advice to the government on future aviation policy.
The government has signalled its support for expanding Heathrow, the nation’s largest airport, while relying on “techno-fixes” such as “sustainable aviation fuels” (SAFs) to cut emissions.
Yet, even without Heathrow expansion, the CCC says aviation emissions are on track to be higher in 2050 than they are today – reaching 38m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2).
As the chart below shows, this would account for most of the remaining CO2 from the UK economy, all of which would need to be removed from the atmosphere in order to meet the legal target of net-zero emissions.
Expanding Heathrow would add another 2.4MtCO2 in 2050, amounting to around 5% of all the UK’s emissions. (This would increase to 4.5MtCO2 when expansion is complete in 2054.)
With a final decision on Heathrow expansion expected by 2029, the government asked the CCC for its advice on whether the plan is compatible with the UK’s climate targets.
The CCC has concluded that the UK simply lacks sufficient policies to reduce aviation emissions and “expanding Heathrow would compound the problem”. In a press briefing, CCC chair Nigel Topping told journalists:
“The UK does not currently have a credible plan to reduce [aviation emissions] in line with net-zero, so that creates a serious challenge for meeting our climate commitments.”
The “jet-zero strategy”, launched by the previous Conservative government in 2022, set out plans to cut aviation emissions. However, the Labour government has since accepted that the strategy’s expectations for SAFs, electric planes and fuel-efficiency improvements were unrealistic.
The CCC says a “credible and robust net-zero policy framework for aviation” should be set out in a revised strategy, which is planned for 2027. Only then could Heathrow expansion be aligned with the net-zero goal, adds the committee.
As part of this new strategy, the CCC says the “aviation sector needs to take responsibility for its emissions”. It says policies should be designed based on the “polluter pays” principle, requiring the aviation industry to fund its own SAFs and CO2 removal.
Specifically, the committee says funding will be needed for “engineered removal” technologies, such as direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS).
These technologies are currently “not yet available at the scale required”, but are vital for the kind of permanent CO2 removal needed to mop up aviation emissions, says the CCC.
(“Natural solutions” such as tree planting are the other main way CO2 is expected to be removed from the atmosphere. However, the CCC envisages these removals offsetting the remaining methane emissions from livestock agriculture in the UK, whereas it says “engineered removals” would be required to remove and store CO2 from flights.)
The CCC acknowledges that placing decarbonisation costs on airlines would likely lead to higher ticket prices. It estimates that this could mean an increase, in 2024 prices, of around £150 for a return trip to Alicante, Spain, and £400 for a return trip to New York by 2050.
However, it says this is preferable to a public spending approach, which would result in the roughly 50% of the population who do not fly paying for flight-related CO2 removals.
In addition, the committee notes that higher costs would help to manage demand for flights, which would otherwise be expected to increase considerably over the coming decades.
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The post CCC: Heathrow expansion could push flights to ‘80% of UK emissions by 2050’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
CCC: Heathrow expansion could push flights to ‘80% of UK emissions by 2050’
A fifth of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions are linked to international trade in goods and services, a new tracker shows, spotlighting a little-studied issue that researchers say should be tackled by the UN climate process.
Currently, as part of the Paris Agreement, every country is responsible for counting and reducing the planet-heating emissions that are produced within its territory. Manufacturing countries, for example, may have high emissions even if what they make is exported for consumption elsewhere.
But new analysis from the European Climate Foundation (ECF) and climate consultancy Matière, based on the tracker’s data, shows that some countries have a high footprint of “imported emissions” from goods and services they ship in. These emissions are often ignored in the places where the products are consumed because they are not formally counted under greenhouse gas inventories.
In the European Union, for example, while domestic emissions have declined since 2015, imported emissions have remained unchanged, the analysis shows. In some countries, like Austria or Sweden, they are as high as the country’s entire annual carbon footprint.
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Former EU lead climate negotiator Jacob Werksman said that under the Paris Agreement, these traded emissions are accounted for in the countries where they are originally produced, but importing countries can also take responsibility for their consumption.
“It starts with a wide recognition by many jurisdictions around the world that we need to know the carbon content of these products, and we then need to agree what is a fair, effective, transparent and relatively easy-to-implement way of measuring that carbon in traded products,” he told a launch event for the trade emissions tracker, which contains data for different countries, sectors and gases.
Trade and its role in addressing climate change has become a higher priority at UN climate talks after a push led by emerging economies including China, India and South Africa led to the first trade and climate change dialogue held this year at the mid-year session in Bonn.
At the upcoming COP31 UN summit in Antalya, some voluntary initiatives like the Brazil-led Integrated Forum on Climate Change and Trade are expected to continue, but the issue does not feature in Türkiye’s Action Agenda of climate initiatives and formal negotiations are not scheduled on the topic.
China: the world’s top emissions exporter
As a manufacturing powerhouse, China ranks first in the new tracker as the world’s top-emitting country, but the data shows that a large chunk of the country’s carbon emissions – an amount larger than Brazil’s entire annual carbon footprint – are linked to products that are exported and consumed abroad.
Russia, Brazil, the US and the EU rank as the top destinations for Chinese trade-related emissions, which are mostly linked to components for power generation, basic metals like copper and lead, and non-metallic minerals like graphite and phosphorus.
Yet China is also the world’s top emissions importer, related mostly to agricultural products, fossil fuels and minerals brought from the US, the EU, Japan and India, among others. The US ranks second by a close margin, with both countries importing about 1.6 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent.
China’s industrial engine starts to break its fossil fuel habit
Richard Baron, ECF’s industrial policy and trade director, said Chinese clean energy products are key for reducing emissions around the world, adding that Europe is “not able to do without those technologies” for its energy transition.
“China has an emissions trading system that counts CO2 differently there. But if China and the EU were to agree on some kind of translation mechanism to say ‘this is how we measure it’, and companies can understand the protocol to navigate both markets, that would set the tone for a lot of other conversations,” he said at the platform’s launch event last week.
The analysis suggests that if the EU and China aligned their climate requirements for products, the resulting standards could influence trade flows representing about 7% of global emissions.
Baron said there’s “a plethora” of multilateral spaces to hold these discussions, including the climate and trade dialogue at the UN climate talks or the Climate Club at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which seeks to cut industrial emissions.
Trade breaks into agenda of UN climate talks – but will it have teeth?
Controversial trade measures
Instruments like the Europe’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) – a recent piece of legislation that penalises emissions-heavy imported products – are one tool that could be used to address trade-related emissions, said Antoine Oger, executive director at the Institute for European Environmental Policy.
He said a significant portion of imported emissions in Europe are already covered by CBAM, as it includes sectors like cement, iron and steel, fertilisers and aluminium. This then allows the EU “to engage in constructive dialogue with our trade partners”, he added.
But across diplomatic summits, including at UN climate talks, emerging economies have pushed back heavily against the CBAM and other trade measures. The most recent BRICS declaration adopted on Saturday by 11 such countries – including China, India and Russia – condemns “protectionism under the guise of environmental objectives”.
The declaration calls for the “elimination of such unlawful measures”, which they argue have “far-reaching negative implications for the human rights, including the rights to development, health and food security” of vulnerable communities.
“The question of responsibility is a political question,” Oger said. “These emissions exist – they are emitted somewhere to make a product that will be consumed elsewhere. So you can debate responsibility but the idea is for the two parts to recognise there’s a problem.”
The aim, he added “is not to point fingers, but to accept this is a reality of our emissions profiles and ask what we can do about it”.
The post International trade linked to 20% of global emissions – but imports ignored appeared first on Climate Home News.
International trade linked to 20% of global emissions – but imports ignored
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