IMERS International Maritime Emission Reduction Scheme

Our shipping climate architecture has been completed. It is entitled: Architecture for Mitigation, Adaptation and Technology Transformation for International Transport (0.4 Mb).
The architecture covers emissions from international maritime transport and potentially from aviation in the post-2012 climate aggreement.

The main challenge addressed is how to provide global uniform rules and policies for international transport while delivering on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities embodied in the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol. We propose to link together adaptation, mitigation, technology and financing in one single scheme.
The paper concludes:

• The deadlock to address emissions from international maritime transport can be resolved through the proposed architecture, balancing the interests of all parties.
  
• The proposed can be used to hammer out the maritime deal on the right political level - and in time for the key Copenhagen Climate Change Talks in 2009. Otherwise, the risk of inaction is twofold:
  1. repeat Kyoto’s failure to address international transport emissions, and
  2. fail to provide financing for adaptation to climate change crucially needed for the most vulnerable.
  
  

An abstract is provided. The paper is structured as follows:

1. The introduction discusses whether the existing policy deadlock presents an opportunity to address climate change in a holistic manner.
   
2. Section 2 proposes six architectural principles which will be central to unlock common but differentiated responsibilities for international transport. It also quantifies benefits and costs to participating countries, and discusses equity issues.
   
3. Section 3 builds a feasible instrument that could deliver the proposed architecture.
   
4. Finally, Section 4 considers how the existing legal laws and precedents can enable early action.

Half-way solution - Limiting scope to developed countries

The option to limit the scope to emissions from transporting goods to countries with emission reduction commitments only - currently Annex-I countries to the Kyoto Protocol - is not explicitly covered in the paper. The proposed architecture can easily accomodate such an option with the total benefits reduced to 60% from the numbers provided.
The need to reconsider such a less-efficient option has appeared after the recent first IMO Intersessional Meeting of the Working Group on Greenhouse Gas Emissions from ships in Oslo (IMO GHG WG 1). The session was tough, and the European Federation for Transport and Environment called it dissapointing. It was not possible to bridge the principles of the IMO of providing global and uniform rules while delivering on the differentiated principles embodied in the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol. As a result, it was not possible to further develop an economic instrument based either on the submissions for a levy/hybrid scheme or on submissions for an emission trading scheme (ETS).