IMERS International Maritime Emission Reduction Scheme

The gap in funding is very big: 100:1

This is the gap for financing adaptation to climate change in developing countries.
Thus far the total funding for adaptation measures includes around $200 millions of donor funding plus few hundred $millions from the 2% levy on CDM projects. Required funds are estimated at tens of $billions per annum.

The recent UNFCCC 2007 project on Investment and Financial Flows to Address Climate Change highlighted both the scale of funds required and the need for innovative financing for adaptation (0.2 MB). IMERS is such an innovative proposal for international maritime transport. Gains from the aggregated approach will be directed to adaptation and are estimated in excess of $2.5bn annually (for the scheme including Annex I countries).

At a time when there is a substantial mismatch between funds raised and required for adaptation the advantages and financing scale of IMERS cannot be ignored.
The challenges addressed by the scheme are further described in the Why IMERS? section.