European Commission proposals to bring shipping into the bloc's carbon market contain exclusions for small commercial and military vessels that would leave millions of tonnes of CO2 emissions unregulated, an NGO study showed on Thursday.
With about 90% of world trade transported by sea, global shipping accounts for nearly 3% of the world's CO2 emissions. So far, the industry has avoided the EU's system of pollution charges.
T&E said the loopholes would mean that some 25.8 million tonnes of CO2 would not fall under the ETS, meaning that roughly 20% of the 130 million tonnes emitted annually by shipping in the bloc would be excluded. Peter Liese, the European Parliament's lead negotiator on the ETS reforms, told Reuters that he was looking at the issue raised by T&E ahead of negotiations on the policy.