Greens push for airplane, shipping emissions limits in climate deal

Environmental groups said Wednesday that world leaders should include new pollution standards for airplanes and shipping vessels as part of an international climate deal. 

In a Wednesday letter, a slate of green organizations asked top U.S. climate negotiator Todd Sterns to push for aviation and shipping provisions in a final United Nations climate agreement expected to be finalized this winter. 

{mosads}Negotiators had originally called for aviation and shipping emissions standards in early versions of the climate deal, but that language was eventually stripped out of the working drafts. Officials restored the provisions during negotiations in Germany this week. 

In their letter, the groups said the combined emissions from the two sectors is comparable to those from Germany or South Korea, and that they need to be reined in to help prevent climate change. 

“Excluding these large carbon sources and their rapidly accelerating pollution growth would undermine the Paris negotiations’ central objective,” the groups — a collection that includes the Center for Biological Diversity, Clean Air Task Force, Sierra Club and others — wrote in their letter to Stern. 

“While language has just been restored, we rely on you to make sure it stays firmly embedded in the negotiating text and the final Paris agreement.”

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is planning to write new rules regulating emissions from civil aviation, something officials hope to formally propose by next spring. 

The EPA is working with the United Nations’ International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on the standards, though environmentalists and some Democrats are concerned the rules won’t go far enough in cutting emissions.

In their letter, the groups said the ICAO and the International Maritime Organization have “failed to implement any measures to curb the carbon pollution of aviation and shipping,” something they deem necessary to prevent the Earth from warming by more than 2 degrees Celsius.

“The U.S. must fulfill its role in holding aviation and shipping accountable internationally,” the groups wrote. 

“As by far the largest contributor to global aviation pollution, the U.S. must lead in bringing aviation and  shipping into the Paris agreement.”