Posted on 12 March 2021
Thursday, 25 March 2021, 14:00 -15:30
Speakers: Damien Meadows, Advisor to the European Commission (speaking in a personal capacity) and Tristan Smith, Reader in Energy and Transport at UCL Energy Institute, Director UMAS
Moderator: Joanne Scott, Professor of European Law at EUI
Responsibility or irresponsibility: the challenges of economy-wide action
Damien Meadows, Advisor to the European Commission (speaking in a personal capacity)
In 1994, the UNFCCC left trans-national aviation and shipping emissions aside for “for the time being… recognizing that a procedure for allocating these emissions will be agreed upon in the future”. Only 27 years on, progress has been ‘mixed’, not least because these emissions have been increasing, and because there are wide differences between countries’ emissions from planes and ships. Europe will always be in favour of effective global action, as the strongest supporter of multilateralism in the world. This is not inconsistent with taking responsibility for (some of) these emissions, in particular when we have moved to a world of ‘bottom up’ action through the Paris Agreement. The EU is taking economy-wide action to tackle climate change, and other countries and regions could do likewise.
Pathways to decarbonising the shipping sector
Tristan Smith, Reader in Energy and Transport UCL Energy Institute, Director UMAS
GHG emissions from domestic and international shipping total approximately 1Gt. Whilst 30% of that total fall within NDCs, the responsibility for managing the majority share’s reduction in line with Paris Agreement targets is currently taken by the International Maritime Organisation. The specifics of the drivers of those emissions and the technology and transition pathways that can achieve their reduction will be used to understand the scale and potential ways to achieve decarbonisation of this sector. The execution of that decarbonisation will then be explored as combined public and private governance – for example, how private sector standards might operate in concert with unilateral (national), plurilateral (regional) and multilateral (UN-level) regulation.
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