EU asked to press for bunker fuels to be pushed up the European and UN agenda

8.3.2011
Letter from the Aviation Environment Federation, Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst
– Tourism Watch

Clean Shipping Coalition, Danish Ecological Council, IMERS, Oxfam, Sierra Club,
WWF
 
to
 
Sándor Fazekas, Minister of Rural Development,

Tamás Fellegi, Minister for National Development

Budapest, Hungary.

Dear Minister Fazekas, Minister Fellegi

UNFCCC negotiations resume shortly in Bangkok without the item on sectoral approaches


international bunker fuels (point 1b iv of the LCA track) being on the agenda.
This has arisen because

the Cancun discussion on bunker fuels proved yet again to be inconclusive. Environmental
NGOs

urge the EU to press for this item be reinstated on the agenda and engage with
like-minded Parties

to the UNFCCC, particularly developing country parties, to ensure that this happens.

It is now 14 years since the Kyoto Protocol allocated responsibility for limiting
and reducing bunker

emissions to Annex 1 countries working through the IMO and ICAO. In the absence
of any credible

progress in the intervening years, considerable effort was expended in the run-up
to Copenhagen to

break the political impasse over calls for global action global and developing
country concerns that

the UNFCCC principle of common but differentiated responsibilities be respected.
This impasse

continues to prevent progress at IMO and ICAO despite the Secretary General’s
High Level Group on

Climate Change Financing proposing that any bunker mechanisms should be designed
so as to

ensure no net incidence or burden on developing countries. This concept will
be discussed at the

IMO intersessional Working Group on GHG MBMs later this month.

The environmental organisations supporting this letter share the serious concern
expressed by the

EU on many occasions that the steady rise in bunker emissions must finally be
addressed. Debate in

the UNFCCC can serve as a forum to unlock intractable issues and provide guidance
to the work of

IMO and ICAO. Such debates in the preparatory meetings leading to Copenhagen
certainly had an

impact and in the case of the IMO led to an acceleration of effort.

We believe that a renewed debate in the UNFCCC focussed on concepts such as no
net incidence

and cognisant of the role of IMO and ICAO as well as of the urgent need to identify
new sources of

climate finance, has a good chance of making progress.

The EU could also greatly advance UNFCCC work on bunkers by being able to speak
with one voice in

support of solutions such as the rebate mechanism as a way to avoid net incidence
on developing

countries. This mechanism is a way to reconcile the principles of the different
conventions while

creating a mechanism that can contribute to meeting commitments to deliver financing
for

developing countries.

We call on the Environment Council to have the EU seek the reinstatement of bunker
fuels on the

UNFCCC agenda at the Bangkok session and ask the EU Presidency and the Commission
to pursue

urgent efforts to secure international support for this position with like-minded
countries. In this

regard, we have written in similar terms to Commissioner Hedegaard.

Yours sincerely,

Eelco Leemans Tony Long

President Director

Clean Shipping Coalition (CSC) WWF European Policy Office

Cc State Secretary János Bencsik

Cc Vice President Catherine Ashton
 

Aviation Environment Federation, Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst – Tourism Watch

Clean Shipping Coalition, Danish Ecological Council, IMERS, Oxfam, Sierra Club,
WWF
 
 
 
 
see also
 
some  older news items on bunker fuels:
 
 

COP16: new additions to draft text on bunker fuels

https://www.airportwatch.org.uk/news/detail.php?art_id=4460   3.12.2010
 
 
 

The aviation industry fears the spectre of being the source of climate finance

https://www.airportwatch.org.uk/news/detail.php?art_id=4463   13.12.2010
 
 

UK emissions from shipping six times higher than thought

https://www.airportwatch.org.uk/news/detail.php?art_id=4390   27.9.2010