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A major European shipping trade body is among those lobbying
against the EU's proposed Paris Agreement-aligned net-zero
pathway.
A report by London-based think
tank InfluenceMap tracked 20 trade bodies' efforts to lobby against
the EU's first batch of net-zero policies, the "Fit for 55" net-zero policy package proposed
last month.
The lowest score on support for the European Commission's
net-zero proposals was given to European Community Shipowners'
Associations (ECSA), which promotes the interests of 20 shipping
associations across the EU, the UK, and Norway. According to
InfluenceMap, the group has "actively lobbied to delay or weaken
efforts" to include their sector in EU-level regulations on
climate.
The second-lowest score was awarded to trade group Airlines for
Europe (A4E), hinting at a wider transportation sector trend.
"Industry associations representing transportation sectors are
found to be the most misaligned with the EU Commission's attempts
to implement the Paris Agreement's goals in their lobbying
activities," wrote the authors of the InfluenceMap report.
Both shipping companies and airlines operating in the bloc would
need to start buying a meaningful level of emissions allowances for
the first time under the proposed legislation, InfluenceMap said.
Aviation had been largely exempted and shipping was free from any
obligation to pay for allowances under the bloc-wide EU Emissions
Trading System (EU ETS).
Shipping operators would be required to obtain EU ETS allowances
for a portion of their emissions for intra-EU voyages starting in
2023, but they would ultimately need to obtain them for all
emissions after a four-year phase-in period.
Fit for 55 aligns with the bloc's 55% GHG reduction target for
2030, which will put it on the path to net-zero by 2050. Now the
EU's legal obligation with the June
adoption of the Climate Law, the policy package would increase
EU ETS obligations for not only shipping and aviation, but also for
industrial sectors.
While the transportation bodies have spurned an aggressive
net-zero path, other industrial sectors also turned against it,
InfluenceMap found. Despite affirming that net zero was necessary,
a large proportion of industry bodies surveyed wanted to have their
cake and eat it too by rejecting some of the actions assigned to
their sector needed to reach the 2030 bloc-wide milestone.
Rejection of the EC's program was especially stiff from
cross-sector business associations, and bodies in the refining,
cement, automotive, and steel sectors.
Several cross-sector industry associations with members like
BASF, Shell, and TotalEnergies were on the next-lowest rung.
Posing questions about strategy, some associations deemed the
least supportive of net-zero policies had prominent members
publishing net-zero targets, including Spanish oil major Repsol,
which belongs to the ECSA. Repsol has said it is the first oil and
gas company to set a net-zero goal.
Other companies targeting net-zero emissions but part of the
groups lobbying against the EC plans included BASF (as part of
International Federation of Industrial Energy Consumers) and
TotalEnergies and Engie (as part of Mouvement des Entreprises de
France).
Automakers fought the EU push for electrification of all
passenger vehicles, seen as a cornerstone of the
proposed EU package. The European Automobile Manufacturers
Association (ACEA) lobbied against both strict electrification and
for electric vehicle infrastructure.
However, the study found the power generation industry, which
now includes renewable energy generators as well as utilities, was
one sector that had embraced net-zero policy.
Shipping body pushes back on biofuels
The Fit for 55 policy targets changing the shipping industry's
reliance on fossil fuel-based bunker fuel to a greater reliance on
LNG or more experimentally, on biofuels, ammonia, hydrogen,
methanol, and electrification.
Unlike its aviation sector demands, Fit For 55's FuelEU Maritime
policy would not require operators to use specific fuels, but it
would require the use of fuels that reduce energy GHG intensity by
2% in 2025, 6% by 2030, and finally 75% by 2050. EU scenarios
reveal a pivot towards using biofuels from forestry and
increasingly from energy crops in the initial years.
The proposed policy will drive ships to fuel with biodiesel and
LNG, which was deemed the cheapest compliance option for two
decades in a report on the FuelEU Maritime
draft law by green transportation campaign group T&E.
ESCA weighed in on the push towards biodiesel, raising the issue
of the climate-unfriendliness of feedstocks typically grown by
clearing forests that would otherwise be carbon sinks. In addition,
concerns have been raised that not enough biofuel feedstock will be
available to meet various sectors' demand for biofuels under Fit
for 55, such as airlines' requirement for
sustainable aviation fuel.
"Incentivizing the uptake of biofuel blends purchased outside
the EU could create an enforcement minefield, putting at risk the
achievement of emissions reductions … The principal obligation for
compliance with any new standards should rest with the EU fuel
suppliers," ECSA Secretary-General Martin Dorsman said in a
statement.
An added obligation of FuelEU Maritime is to run ships on
electric power while they are berthed in ports from 2030. ECSA
suggested that the responsibility to ensure there is electric power
for ships in ports should lie with the infrastructure owners.
The international shipping industry is also raising a red flag
on the carbon trading side of the proposals. "Other than as an
ideological revenue raising exercise, which will greatly upset the
EU's trading partners, it's difficult to see what extending the EU
ETS to shipping will achieve towards reducing CO2, particularly as
the proposal only covers about 7.5% of shipping's global emissions.
This could seriously put back climate negotiations for the
remaining 92.5% of shipping emissions," said Secretary General of the
International Chamber of Shipping Guy Platten.
Still more burdens are included in the proposals. IHS Markit
analysts say that the revisions of the Energy Taxation Directive
would also enshrine new minimum taxation levels in law for shipping
and aviation fuels.
The new taxes for shipping fuels, required to be imposed by
member states, would be based on energy content rather than volume,
and have the potential to inadvertently spur the practice of
refueling outside the EU, known as tankering, while also raising
freight rates.
Posted 06 August 2021 by Cristina Brooks, Senior Journalist, Climate and Sustainability