A strong call has been made for the need to reduce carbon emission precisely for the global shipping industry.
Research has found 80 per cent of global trade relies on shipping, amounting to 800 gigatonnes of carbon and contributing to 2 per cent of the global fuel emission.
Isabelle Rojon, a research associate at the University College London, reiterated the need for decarbonisation during the talanoa session at the Pacific Islands Development Forum.
“So far the shipping industry and greenhouse gas emissions are not really regulated there are energy efficiency regulations in place but they are not going to keep emission from increasing and in fact there are projections that the greenhouse emissions increase between by 50 per cent in 2010 and projected to increase a staggering 250 per cent by 2050.
Ms Rojon said the world needed to be committed to the Paris Agreement to ensure the global temperature increase were well below 2C.
“If we are serious about reaching the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement then every country and every industry has to decarbonise at some point.
“If we don’t stop this trend of increasing emission, we are not going to be able to reach 1.5 degrees and most definitely 2 degrees.
“We need global and stringent regulations and we need a target, greenhouse gas emission target, we need to have the measures with which to achieve that target. So this has to be binding and then to start as soon as possible to make sure it is possible.
“It’s about the survival of the Pacific. I couldn’t see a bigger positive than that,” Ms Rojon said.
