London: The true scale of climate change emissions from shipping is almost three times higher than previously believed, according to a leaked UN study seen by the UK's Guardian.
It calculates that annual emissions from the world's merchant fleet have already reached 1.12bn tonnes of CO_, or nearly 4.5% of all global emissions of the main greenhouse gas.
The report suggests that shipping emissions - which are not taken into account by European targets for cutting global warming - will become one of the largest single sources of manmade CO_ after cars, housing, agriculture and industry. By comparison, the aviation industry, which has been under heavy pressure to clean up, is responsible for about 650m tonnes of CO_ emissions a year, just over half that from shipping.
Until now, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has estimated shipping emissions to be a maximum 400m tonnes, but the new draft report by a group of international scientists is a more sophisticated measure, using data collected from the oil and shipping industries for the International Maritime Organisation, the UN agency tasked with monitoring pollution from ships. It not only shows emissions are much worse than feared, but warns CO_ emissions are set to rise by a further 30% by 2020.
Contacted about the contents of the report, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the IPCC, said: "This is a clear failure of the system. The shipping industry has so far escaped publicity. It has been left out of the climate change discussion. I hope [shipping emissions] will be included in the next UN agreement. It would be a cop-out if it was not. It tells me that we have been ineffective at tackling climate change so far."
A report last week carried on Seatrade Asia Online noted how Maersk's CO2 output is now the same as the whole of Denmark. [13/02/08]
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