Editing IPCC:AR6/WGIII/Chapter-14 (section)

=== 14.5.2 International Sectoral Agreements and Institutions ===

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Sectors refer to distinct areas of economic activity, often subject to their own governance regimes; examples include energy production, mobility, and manufacturing. A sectoral agreement could include virtually any type of commitment with implications for mitigation. It could establish sectoral emission targets, on either an absolute or an indexed basis. It could also require states (or particular groups of states, if commitments are differentiated) to adopt uniform or harmonised policies and measuresfor a sector, such as technology-based standards, taxes, or best-practice standards, as well as providing for cooperation on technology research or deployment.

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==== 14.5.2.1 Forestry, Land Use and REDD+ ====

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Since 2008, several, often overlapping, voluntary and non-binding international efforts and agreements have been adopted to reduce net emissions from the forestry sector. These initiatives have varying levels of private sector involvement and different objectives, targets, and timelines. Some efforts focus on reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation, while other focus on the enhancement of sinks through restoration of cleared or degraded landscapes. These initiatives do not elaborate specific policies, procedures, or implementation mechanisms. They set targets, frameworks, and milestones, aiming to catalyse further action, investment, and transparency in conservation and consolidate individual country efforts.

After the UN-sponsored Tropical Forestry Action Plan ( [[#Winterbottom--1990|Winterbottom 1990]] ; [[#Seymour--2016|Seymour and Busch 2016]] ), among the longest standing programmes in the forestry sector are the World Bank-sponsored Forest Carbon Partnership Facility in 2007, which helps facilitate funding for REDD+ readiness and specific projects, in addition to preparing countries for results-based payments and future carbon markets while securing local communities’ benefits managed sub-nationally, and the UN REDD+ Programme initiated in 2008, which aims to reduce forest emissions and enhance carbon stocks in forests while contributing to national sustainable development in developing countries, after the 2007 COP13 in Bali formally adopted REDD+ in the UNFCCC decisions and incorporated it in the Bali Plan of Action. As discussed above, Article 5 of the Paris Agreement encourages Parties to take action to implement and support REDD+. These efforts tend to focus on reducing emissions through the creation of protected areas, payments for ecosystem services, and/or land tenure reform ( [[#Pirard--2019|Pirard et al. 2019]] ). The UNREDD+ programme supports national REDD+ efforts, inclusion of stakeholders in relevant dialogues, and capacity building toward REDD+ readiness in partner countries. To date the conservation and emissions impacts of REDD+ remain misunderstood ( [[#Pirard--2019|Pirard et al. 2019]] ), but while existing evidence suggests that reductions in deforestation from sub-national REDD+ initiatives have been limited ( [[#Bos--2017|Bos et al. 2017]] ) it shows an increasing prominence ( [[#Maguire--2021|Maguire et al. 2021]] ). Additionally, the Green Climate Fund has carried out results-based payments within REDD+. Eight countries have so far received significant funding ( [[#GCF--2021|GCF 2021]] ). The shift in the REDD+ focus from ecosystem service payment to domestic policy realignments and incentive structure has changed the way REDD+ was developed and implemented (Brockhaus et al. 2017). Large-scale market resources have not fully materialised as a global carbon market system that explicitly integrates REDD+ remains under development ( [[#Angelsen--2017|Angelsen 2017]] ). Public funding for REDD+ is also limited ( [[#Climate%20Focus--2017|Climate Focus 2017]] ). Leading up to the adoption of the Paris Agreement, the governments of Germany, Norway, and the United Kingdom formed a partnership in 2014 called ‘GNU’ to support results-based financing for REDD+, with Norway emerging as one of, if not the single largest, major donor for REDD+ through its pledge in 2007 of approximately USD3 billion annually. Norway pledged USD1 billion for Brazil in 2008 and the same for Indonesia in 2010 ( [[#Schroeder--2020|Schroeder et al. 2020]] ). Meanwhile, REDD+ Early Movers was established with support from Germany, and the Central African Forest Initiative, a collaborative partnership between the European Union, Germany, Norway, France, and the United Kingdom was also set up. It supports six central African countries in fighting deforestation.

More recently, the Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition was established, consisting of the governments of Norway, the UK, and the USA and initially nine companies, to accelerate REDD+ with a jurisdictional approach. LEAF uses the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART)’s The REDD+ Environmental Excellence Standard (TREES), coordinated by Emergent, a non-profit intermediary between tropical countries and the private sector. Three jurisdictions in Brazil and two countries have already submitted concept notes to ART to receive results-based payments. REDD+ initiatives with a jurisdictional approach have also been adopted in various markets, such as the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) (Maguire 2021). In addition to Brazil, Indonesia has attracted significant interest as a host country for REDD+. Indonesia ranks second, after Brazil, as the largest producer of deforestation-related GHG emissions ( [[#Zarin--2016|Zarin et al. 2016]] ), but it has committed to a large reduction of deforestation in its NDC ( [[#Government%20of%20Indonesia--2016|Government of Indonesia 2016]] ). Australia has collaborated on scientific research and emissions reduction monitoring ( [[#Tacconi--2017|Tacconi 2017]] ). It took a while, however, before emissions reductions were witnessed ( [[#Meehan--2019|Meehan et al. 2019]] ). The expansion of commodity plantations, however, conflict with reduction ambitions ( [[#Anderson--2016|Anderson et al. 2016]] ; [[#Irawan--2019|Irawan et al. 2019]] ) In addition to implementation at the site and jurisdictional levels, legal enforcement ( [[#Tacconi--2019|Tacconi et al. 2019]] ) as well as policy and regulatory reforms ( [[#Ekawati--2019|Ekawati et al. 2019]] ) appear to be needed.

Another relevant initiative is one under the 2015 United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), which targets land degradation neutrality, that is, ‘a ''state whereby the amount and quality of land resources, necessary to support ecosystem functions and services and enhance food security, remains stable or increases within specified temporal and spatial scales and ecosystems’'' ( [[#Orr--2017|Orr et al. 2017]] ). This overarching goal was recognised as also being critical to reaching the more specific avoided deforestation and degradation and restoration goals of the UNFCCC and UNCBD. The Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) initiative from UNCCD includes target-setting programmes that assist countries by providing practical tools and guidance for the establishment of the voluntary targets and to formulate associated measures to achieve LDN and accelerate implementation of projects ( [[#Chasek--2019|Chasek et al. 2019]] ). Today, 124 countries have committed to their LDN national targets ( [[#UNCCD--2015|UNCCD 2015]] ). The LDN Fund is an investment vehicle launched in UNCCD COP 13 in 2017, which exists to provide long-term financing for private projects and programmes for countries to achieve their LDN targets. According to the UNCCD, most of the funds will be invested in developing countries.

Recent efforts towards the enhancement of sinks from the forestry sector have the overarching goal of reaching zero ''gross'' deforestation globally, that is, eliminating the clearing of all natural forests. The New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF) was the first international pledge to call for a halving of natural forest loss by 2020 and the complete elimination of natural forest loss by 2030 ( [[#Climate%20Focus--2016|Climate Focus 2016]] ). It was endorsed at the United Nations Climate Summit in September 2014. By September 2019 the list of NYDF supporters included over 200 actors: national governments, sub-national governments, multi-national companies, groups representing indigenous communities, and non-government organisations. These endorsers committed to doing their part to achieve the NYDF’s ten goals, which included ending deforestation for agricultural expansion by 2020, reducing deforestation from other sectors, restoring forests, and providing financing for forest action ( [[#Forest%20Declaration--2019|Forest Declaration 2019]] ). These goals are assessed and tracked through the NYDF Progress Assessment, which includes NYDF Assessment Partners that collect data, generate analysis, and release the finding based on the NYDF framework and goals.

The effectiveness of these agreements, which lack binding rules, can only be judged by the supplementary actions they have catalysed. The NYDF contributed to the development of several other zero-deforestation pledges, including the Amsterdam Declarations by seven European nations to achieve fully sustainable and deforestation-free agro-commodity supply chains in Europe by 2020 and over 150 individual company commitments to not source products associated with deforestation ( [[#Donofrio--2017|Donofrio et al. 2017]] ; [[#Lambin--2018|Lambin et al. 2018]] ). Recent studies indicate that these efforts currently lack the potential to achieve wide-scale reductions in clearing and associated emissions due to weak implementation ( [[#Garrett--2019|Garrett et al. 2019]] ), although in some cases in Indonesia and elsewhere the commodity supply chain sustainability drive appears to contribute to lowering deforestation ( [[#Wijaya--2019|Wijaya et al. 2019]] ; [[#Chain%20Reaction%20Research--2020|Chain Reaction Research 2020]] ; [[#Schulte--2020|Schulte et al. 2020]] ). The NYDF may have triggered small additional reductions in deforestation in some areas, particularly for soy, and to a lesser extent cattle, in the Brazilian Amazon ( [[#Lambin--2018|Lambin et al. 2018]] ), but these effects were temporary, as efforts are being actively reversed and deforestation has increased again significantly. Deforestation rates have escalated in Brazil, with the rate in June 2019 (the first dry-season month in the new administration) up 88% over the 2018 rate in the same month ( [[#INPE--2019|INPE 2019]] ). [[#Curtis--2018|Curtis et al. (2018)]] find global targets are clearly not being met. More recent increase in the deforestation rate remains to be assessed. NYDF confirms that the initiative did not reach its zero-deforestation goal ( [[#NYDF%20Assessment%20Partners--2020|NYDF Assessment Partners 2020]] ).

In 2010, the Parties to the CBD adopted the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 which included 20 targets known as the Aichi Biodiversity targets ( [[#Marques--2014|Marques et al. 2014]] ). Of relevance to the forestry sector, Aichi Target 15 sets the goal of enhancing ecosystem resilience and the contribution of biodiversity to carbon stocks though conservation and restoration, including ‘restoration of at least 15% of degraded ecosystems’ ( [[#UNCBD--2010|UNCBD 2010]] ). The plan elaborates milestones, including the development of national plans for potential restoration levels and contributions to biodiversity protection, carbon sequestration, and climate adaptation to be integrated into other national strategies, including REDD+. In 2020, however, the CBD found that while progress was evident for the majority of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, it was not sufficient for the achievement of the targets by 2020 ( [[#CBD--2020|CBD 2020]] ).

Recent efforts toward negative emissions through restoration include the Bonn Challenge, the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) and Initiative 20x20. The Bonn Challenge, initiated in 2011 by the Government of Germany and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, is intended to catalyse the existing international AFOLU commitments. It aimed to bring 150 million hectares (Mha) of the world’s deforested and degraded land into restoration by 2020, and 350 Mha by 2030. AFR has the goal of restoring 100 Mha specifically in Africa ( [[#AUDA-NEPAD--2019|AUDA-NEPAD 2019]] ), while 20x20 aims to restore 20 Mha in Latin America and the Caribbean ( [[#Anderson--2019|Anderson and Peimbert 2019]] ). Increasing commitments for restoration have created momentum for restoration interventions ( [[#Chazdon--2017|Chazdon et al. 2017]] ; [[#Mansourian--2017|Mansourian et al. 2017]] ; [[#Djenontin--2018|Djenontin et al. 2018]] ). To date 97 Mha has been pledged in NDCs. Yet only a small part of this goal has been achieved. The Bonn Challenge Barometer – a progress-tracking framework and tool to support pledgers – indicates that 27 Mha ( [[#InfoFLR--2018|InfoFLR 2018]] ) are currently being restored, equivalent to 1.379 GtCO 2 -eq sequestered ( [[#Dave--2019|Dave et al. 2019]] ). A key challenge in scaling up restoration has been to mobilise sufficient financing ( [[#Liagre--2015|Liagre et al. 2015]] ; [[#Djenontin--2018|Djenontin et al. 2018]] ). This underscores the importance of building international financing for restoration (equivalent to the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility focused on avoided deforestation and degradation).

In sum, existing international agreements have had a small impact on reducing emissions from the AFOLU sector and some success in achieving the enhancement of sinks through restoration. However, these outcomes are nowhere near levels required to meet the Paris Agreement temperature goal – which would require turning land use and forests globally from a net anthropogenic source during 1990–2010 to a net sink of carbon by 2030, and providing a quarter of emissions reductions planned by countries ( [[#Grassi--2017|Grassi et al. 2017]] ). The AFOLU sector has so far contributed only modestly to net mitigation (Chapter 7).

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==== 14.5.2.2 Energy Sector ====

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International cooperation on issues of energy supply and security has a long and complicated history. There exists a plethora of institutions, organisations, and agreements concerned with managing the sector. There have been efforts to map the relevant actors, with authors in one case identifying six primary organisations ( [[#Kérébel--2009|Kérébel and Keppler 2009]] ), in another 16 ( [[#Lesage--2010|Lesage et al. 2010]] ), and in a third 50 ( [[#Sovacool--2012|Sovacool and Florini 2012]] ). At the same time, very little of that history has had climate mitigation as its core focus. Global energy governance has encompassed five broad goals – security of energy supply and demand, economic development, international security, environmental sustainability, and domestic good governance – and as only one of these provides an entry point for climate mitigation, effort in this direction has often been lost ( [[#van%20de%20Graaf--2016|van de Graaf and Colgan 2016]] ). To take one example, during the 1980s and 1990s a combination of bilateral development support and lending practices from multilateral development banks pushed developing countries to adopt power market reforms consistent with the Washington Consensus: towards liberalised power markets and away from state-owned monopolies. The goals of these reforms did not include an environmental component, and among the results was new investment in fossil-fired thermal power generation ( [[#Foster--2020|Foster and Rana 2020]] ).

As [[#Goldthau--2010|Goldthau and Witte (2010)]] document, the majority of governance efforts, outside of oil and gas producing states, was oriented towards ensuring reliable and affordable access for oil and gas imports. For example, the original rationale for the creation of the International Energy Agency (IEA), during the oil crisis of 1973–74, was to manage a mechanism to ensure importing countries’ access to oil (van de Graaf and Lesage 2009). On the other side of the aisle, oil exporting countries created the international institution OPEC to enable them to influence oil output, thereby stabilising prices and revenues for exporting countries ( [[#Fattouh--2013|Fattouh and Mahadeva 2013]] ). For years, energy governance was seen as a zero-sum game between these poles ( [[#Goldthau--2010|Goldthau and Witte 2010]] ). The only international governance agency focusing on low-carbon energy sources was the International Atomic Energy Agency, with a dual mission of promoting nuclear energy and nuclear weapons non-proliferation ( [[#Scheinman--1987|Scheinman 1987]] ).

More recently, however, new institutions have emerged, and existing institutions have realigned their missions, in order to promote capacity building and global investment in low-carbon energy technologies. Collectively, these developments may support the emergence of a nascent field of global sustainable energy governance, in which a broad range of global, regional, national, sub-national and non-state actors, in aggregate, shape, direct and implement the low carbon transition through climate change mitigation activities, which produce concomitant societal benefits ( [[#Bruce--2018|Bruce 2018]] ). Beginning in the 1990s, for example, the IEA began to broaden its mission from one concerned primarily with security of oil supplies, which encompassed conservation of energy resources, to one also concerned with the sustainability of energy use, including work programmes on energy efficiency and clean energy technologies and scenarios (van de Graaf and Lesage 2009). Scholars have suggested that it was the widespread perception that the IEA was primarily interested in promoting the continued use of fossil fuels, and underplaying the potential role of renewable technologies, that led a number of IEA member states to successfully push for the creation of a parallel organisation, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), which was then established in 2009 ( [[#van%20de%20Graaf--2013|van de Graaf 2013]] ). An assessment of IRENA’s activities in 2015 suggested that the agency has a positive effect related to three core activities: offering advisory services to member states regarding renewable energy technologies and systems; serving as a focal point for data and analysis for renewable energy; and, mobilising other international institutions, such as multilateral development banks, promoting renewable energy ( [[#Urpelainen--2015|Urpelainen and Van de Graaf 2015]] ). The United Nations, including its various agencies such as the Committee on Sustainable Energy within the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, has also played a role in the realignment of global energy governance towards mitigation efforts. As a precursor to SDG 7, the United Nations initiated in 2011 the Sustainable Energy for All initiative, which in addition to aiming for universal access to modern energy services, included the goals of doubling the rate of improvement in energy efficiency, and doubling by 2030 the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix ( [[#Bruce--2018|Bruce 2018]] ).

Sub-global agreements have also started to emerge, examples of issue-specific climate clubs. In 2015, 70 solar-rich countries signed a framework agreement dedicated towards promoting solar energy development ( [[#ISA--2015|ISA 2015]] ). In 2017 the Powering Past Coal Alliance was formed, uniting a set of states, businesses, and non-governmental organisations around the goal of eliminating coal-fired power generation by 2050 ( [[#Jewell--2019|Jewell et al. 2019]] ; [[#Blondeel--2020|Blondeel et al. 2020]] ). Scholars have argued that greater attention to supply-side agreements such as this – focusing on reducing and ultimately eliminating the supply of carbon-intensive energy sources – would strengthen the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement (Collier and Venables 2014; [[#Piggot--2018|Piggot et al. 2018]] ; [[#Asheim--2019|Asheim et al. 2019]] ; [[#Newell--2020|Newell and Simms 2020]] ). [[IPCC:Wg3:Chapter:Chapter-6|Chapter 6]] of this report, on energy systems, notes the importance of regional cooperation on electric grid development, seen as necessary to enable higher shares of solar and wind power penetration ( [[#RGI--2011|RGI 2011]] ). Finally, a number of transnational organisations and activities have emerged, such as REN21, a global community of renewable energy experts ( [[#REN21--2019|REN21 2019]] ), and RE100, an NGO-led initiative to enlist multilateral companies to shift towards 100% renewable energy in their value chains ( [[#RE100--2019|RE100 2019]] ).

Whether a result of the above activities or not, multilateral development banks’ lending practices have shifted in the direction of renewable energy ( [[#Delina--2017|Delina 2017]] ), a point also raised in [[IPCC:Wg3:Chapter:Chapter-15|Chapter 15]] of this report. Activities include new sources of project finance, concessional loans, as well as loan guarantees, the latter through the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency ( [[#Multilateral%20Investment%20Guarantee%20Agency--2019|Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency 2019]] ). This appears to matter. For example, [[#Frisari--2015|Frisari and Stadelmann (2015)]] find concessional lending by multilateral development banks to solar energy projects in Morocco and India to have reduced overall project costs, due to more attractive financing conditions from additional lenders, as well as reducing the costs to local governments. [[#Labordena--2017|Labordena et al. (2017)]] projected these results into the future, and found that with the drop in financing costs, renewable energy projects serving all major demand centres in sub-Saharan Africa could reach cost parity with fossil fuels by 2025, whereas without the drop in financing costs associated with concessional lending, this would not be the case. Similarly, [[#Creutzig--2017|Creutzig et al. (2017)]] suggest that greater international attention to finance could be instrumental in the full development of solar energy.

Despite improvements in the international governance of energy, it still appears that a great deal of this is still concerned with promoting further development of fossil fuels. One aspect of this is the development of international legal norms. A large number of bilateral and multilateral agreements, including the 1994 Energy Charter Treaty, include provisions for using a system of investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) designed to protect the interests of investors in energy projects from national policies that could lead their assets to be stranded. Numerous scholars have pointed to ISDS being able to be used by fossil-fuel companies to block national legislation aimed at phasing out the use of their assets ( [[#Tienhaara--2018|Tienhaara 2018]] ; [[#Bos--2019|Bos and Gupta 2019]] ). Another aspect is finance; [[#Gallagher--2018|Gallagher et al. (2018)]] examine the role of national development finance systems. While there has been a great deal of finance devoted to renewable energy, they find the majority of finance devoted to projects associated either with fossil fuel extraction or with fossil fuel-fired power generation.

Given the complexity of global energy governance, it is impossible to make a definitive statement about its overall contribution to mitigation efforts. Three statements, do however, appear to be robust. First, prior to the emergence of climate change on the global political agenda, international cooperation in the area of energy was primarily aimed at expanding and protecting the use of fossil energy, and these goals were entrenched in a number of multilateral organisations. Second, since the 1990s, international cooperation has gradually taken climate mitigation on board as one of its goals, seeing a realignment of many pre-existing organisations priorities, and the formation of a number of new international arrangements oriented towards the development of renewable energy resources. Third, the realignment is far from complete, and there are still examples of international cooperation having a chilling effect on climate mitigation, particularly through financing and investment practices, including legal norms designed to protect the interests of owners of fossil assets.

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==== 14.5.2.3 Transportation ====

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The transportation sector has been a particular focus of cooperative efforts on climate mitigation that extend beyond the sphere of the UNFCCC climate regime. A number of these cooperative efforts involve transnational public-private partnerships, such as the European-based Transport Decarbonisation Alliance, which brings together countries, regions, cities and companies working towards the goal of a ‘net-zero emission mobility system before 2050’ ( [[#TDA--2019|TDA 2019]] ). Other efforts are centred in specialised UN agencies, such as the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

Measures introduced by the ICAO and IMO have addressed CO 2 emissions from international shipping and aviation. Emissions from these parts of the transportation sector are generally excluded from national emissions reduction policies and NDCs because the ‘international’ location of emissions release makes allocation to individual nations difficult ( [[#Bows-Larkin--2015|Bows-Larkin 2015]] ; [[#Lyle--2018|Lyle 2018]] ; [[#Hoch--2019|Hoch et al. 2019]] ). The measures adopted by ICAO take the form of standards and recommended practices that are adopted in national legislation. IMO publishes ‘regulations’ but does not have a power of enforcement, with non-compliance a responsibility of flag states that issue a ship’s ‘MARPOL’ certificate.

As discussed in [[IPCC:Wg3:Chapter:Chapter-2|Chapter 2]] and Figure SPM.4, international aviation currently accounts for approximately 1% of global GHG emissions, with international shipping contributing 1.2% of global GHG emissions. These international transport emissions are projected to be between approximately 60% and 220% of global emissions of CO 2 in 2050, as represented by the four main illustrative model pathways in SR1.5 ( [[#Rogelj--2018|Rogelj et al. 2018]] ; [[#UNEP--2020|UNEP 2020]] ) Notably, however, the climate impact of aviation emissions is estimated to be two to four times higher due to non-CO 2 effects ( [[#Terrenoire--2019|Terrenoire et al. 2019]] ; [[#Lee--2021a|Lee et al. 2021a]] ). Increases in trans-Arctic shipping and tourism activities with sea ice loss are also forecast to have strong regional effects due to ships’ gas and particulate emissions ( [[#Stephenson--2018|Stephenson et al. 2018]] ).

The Kyoto Protocol required Annex I Parties to pursue emissions reductions from aviation and marine bunker fuels by working through IMO and ICAO ( [[#UNFCCC--1997|UNFCCC 1997]] , Art. 2.2). Limited progress was made by these organisations on emissions controls in the ensuing decades ( [[#Liu--2011b|Liu 2011b]] ), but greater action was prompted by conclusion of the SDGs and Paris Agreement ( [[#Martinez%20Romera--2016|Martinez Romera 2016]] ), together with unilateral action, such as the EU’s inclusion of aviation emissions in its Emissions Trading System ( [[#Dobson--2020|Dobson 2020]] ).

The Paris Agreement neither explicitly addresses emissions from international aviation and shipping, nor repeats the Kyoto Protocol’s provision requiring Parties to work through ICAO/IMO to address these emissions ( [[#Hoch--2019|Hoch et al. 2019]] ). This leaves unclear the status of the Kyoto Protocol’s Article 2.2 directive after 2020 ( [[#Martinez%20Romera--2016|Martinez Romera 2016]] ; [[#Dobson--2020|Dobson 2020]] ), potentially opening up scope for more attention to aviation and shipping emissions under the Paris Agreement ( [[#Doelle--2019|Doelle and Chircop 2019]] ). Some commentators have suggested that emissions from international aviation and shipping should be part of the Paris Agreement ( [[#Gençsü--2015|Gençsü and Hino 2015]] ; [[#Traut--2018|Traut et al. 2018]] ), and shipping and aviation industries themselves may prefer emissions to be treated under an international regime rather than a nationally-oriented one ( [[#Gilbert--2012|Gilbert and Bows 2012]] ). In the case of shipping emissions, there is nothing in the Paris Agreement to prevent a Party from including international shipping in some form in its NDC ( [[#Doelle--2019|Doelle and Chircop 2019]] ) Under the Paris Rulebook, Parties ‘should report international aviation and marine bunker fuel emissions as two separate entries and should not include such emissions in national totals but report them distinctly, if disaggregated data are available’ ( [[#UNFCCC--2019d|UNFCCC 2019d]] ).

ICAO has an overarching climate goal to ‘limit or reduce the impact of aviation greenhouse gas emissions on the global climate’ with respect to international aviation. In order to achieve this, ICAO has two global aspirational goals for the international aviation sector, of 2% annual fuel efficiency improvement through 2050 and carbon neutral growth from 2020 onwards ( [[#ICAO--2016|ICAO 2016]] ). In order to achieve these global aspirational goals, ICAO is pursuing a ‘basket’ of mitigation measures for the aviation sector consisting of technical and operational measures, such as a CO 2 emissions standard for new aircraft adopted in 2016, measures on sustainable alternative fuels and a market-based measure, known as the Carbon Offset and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA), which the triennial ICAO Assembly of 193 Member States resolved to establish in 2016 ( [[#ICAO--2016|ICAO 2016]] ). In line with the 2016 ICAO Assembly Resolution that established CORSIA, in mid-2018, the ICAO’s 36-member state governing Council adopted a series of Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs), now contained in Annex 16, Volume IV of the Chicago Convention (1944), as a common basis for CORSIA’s implementation and enforcement by each state and its aeroplane operators. From 1 January 2019, the CORSIA SARPs require states and their operators to undertake an annual process of monitoring, verification, and reporting of emissions from all international flights, including to establish CORSIA’s emissions baseline ( [[#ICAO--2019|ICAO 2019]] ).

Based on this emissions data, CORSIA’s carbon offsetting obligations commenced in 2021, with three-year compliance cycles, including a pilot phase in 2021–2023. States have the option to participate in the pilot phase and the subsequent voluntary three-year cycle in 2024–2026. CORSIA becomes mandatory from 2027 onwards for states whose share in the total international revenue tonnes per kilometre is above a certain threshold ( [[#Hoch--2019|Hoch et al. 2019]] ). Under CORSIA, aviation CO 2 emissions are not capped, but rather emissions that exceed the CORSIA baseline are compensated through use of ‘offset units’ from emissions reduction projects in other industries ( [[#Erling--2018|Erling 2018]] ). However, it is unclear whether the goal of carbon neutral growth and further CO 2 emissions reduction in the sector will be sufficiently incentivised solely through the use of such offsets in combination with ICAO’s manufacturing standards, programmes, and state action plans, without additional measures being taken, for example, constraints on demand ( [[#Lyle--2018|Lyle 2018]] ). If countries such as China, Brazil, India and Russia do not participate in CORSIA’s voluntary offsetting requirements this could significantly undermine its capacity to deliver fully on the sectoral goal by limiting coverage of the scheme to less than 50% of international aviation CO 2 emissions in the period 2021–2026 ( [[#Hoch--2019|Hoch et al. 2019]] ; [[#Climate%20Action%20Tracker--2020b|Climate Action Tracker 2020b]] ). In addition, a wide range of offsets are approved as ‘eligible emissions units’ in CORSIA, including several certified under voluntary carbon offset schemes, which may go beyond those eventually agreed under the Paris Agreement Article 6 mechanism ( [[#Hoch--2019|Hoch et al. 2019]] ). It is noted, however, that ICAO applies a set of ‘Emissions Unit Eligibility Criteria’, agreed in March 2019, which specify required design elements for eligible programmes. In June 2020, the ICAO Council decided to define 2019 emissions levels, rather than an average of 2019 and 2020 emissions, as the baseline year for at least the first three years of CORSIA, although there were significant reductions (45–60%) in aviation CO 2 emissions in 2020 compared with 2019 as a result of reductions in air travel associated with the COVID-19 pandemic ( [[#Climate%20Action%20Tracker--2020b|Climate Action Tracker 2020b]] ).

Other measures adopted by ICAO include an aircraft CO 2 emissions standard that applies to new aircraft type designs from 2020, and to aircraft type designs already in production as of 2023 ( [[#Smith--2018|Smith and Ahmad 2018]] ). Overall, CORSIA and regional measures, such as the EU ETS, are estimated to reduce aviation carbon emissions by only 0.8% per year from 2017–2030 (noting, however, that ‘if non-CO 2 emissions are included in the analysis, then emissions will increase’) ( [[#Larsson--2019|Larsson et al. 2019]] ). Accordingly, pathways consistent with the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement are likely to require more stringent international measures for the aviation sector ( [[#Larsson--2019|Larsson et al. 2019]] ).

Similar to ICAO, the IMO has a stated vision of remaining committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping and, as a matter of urgency, aims to phase them out as soon as possible in this century. IMO has considered a range of measures to monitor and reduce shipping emissions. In 2016, the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) approved an amendment to the MARPOL Convention Annex VI for the introduction of a mandatory global data collection scheme for fuel oil consumption of ships ( [[#Dobson--2020|Dobson 2020]] ). Other IMO measures have focused on energy efficiency ( [[#Martinez%20Romera--2016|Martinez Romera 2016]] ). The IMO’s Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI), which is mandatory for new ships, is intended, over a ten-year period, to improve energy efficiency by up to 30% in several categories of ships propelled by diesel engines ( [[#Smith--2018|Smith and Ahmad 2018]] ). In May 2019, the MEPC approved draft amendments to the MARPOL Convention Annex VI, which if adopted, will bring forward the entry into force of the third phase of the EEDI requirements to 2022 instead of 2025 ( [[#IMO--2019|IMO 2019]] ; [[#Joung--2020|Joung et al. 2020]] ).

However, it is unlikely that the EEDI and other IMO technical and operational measures will be sufficient to produce ‘the necessary emissions reduction because of the future growth in international seaborne trade and world population’ ( [[#Shi--2018|Shi and Gullett 2018]] ). Consequently, in 2018, the IMO adopted an initial strategy on reduction of GHG emissions from ships ( [[#IMO--2018|IMO 2018]] ). This includes a goal for declining carbon intensity of the sector by reducing CO 2 emissions per transport work, as an average across international shipping, by at least 40% by 2030, and pursuing efforts towards 70% by 2050, compared to 2008 levels ( [[#IMO--2018|IMO 2018]] , Para. 3.1). The strategy also aims for peaking of total annual GHG emissions from international shipping as soon as possible and a reduction by at least 50% by 2050 compared to 2008 levels, while pursuing efforts towards phasing them out ‘as soon as possible in this century’ as a point ‘on a pathway of CO 2 emissions reduction consistent with the Paris Agreement temperature goals’ ( [[#IMO--2018|IMO 2018]] , Para. 2, 3.1). The shipping industry is on track to overachieve the 2030 carbon intensity target but not its 2050 target ( [[#Climate%20Action%20Tracker--2020c|Climate Action Tracker 2020c]] ). The initial IMO strategy is to be kept under review by the MEPC with a view to adoption of a revised strategy in 2023.

The IMO’s initial strategy identifies a series of candidate short-term (2018–2023), medium-term (2023–2030) and long-term (beyond 2030) measures for achieving its emissions reduction goals, including possible market-based measures in the medium-to-long term ( [[#IMO--2018|IMO 2018]] , paras. 4.7–4.9). Further progress on market-based measures faces difficulty in light of conflicts between the CBDRRC principle of the climate regime and the traditional non-discrimination approach and principle of no more favourable treatment enshrined in MARPOL and other IMO conventions ( [[#Zhang--2016|Zhang 2016]] ). Both the CBDRRC and non-discrimination principles are designated as ‘principles guiding the initial strategy’ ( [[#IMO--2018|IMO 2018]] , Para. 3.2). The challenges encountered in introducing global market-based measures for shipping emissions under the IMO have prompted regional initiatives such as the proposed extension of the EU ETS to emissions from maritime activities ( [[#Christodoulou--2021|Christodoulou et al. 2021]] ), which was announced on 14 July 2021 by the EU Commission as part of its ‘Fit for 55’ legislative package ( [[#European%20Commission--2021|European Commission 2021]] ).

While the IMO strategy is viewed as a reasonable first step that is ambitious for the shipping industry, achieving the ‘vision’ of alignment with the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement requires concrete implementation measures and strengthened targets in the next iteration in 2023 ( [[#Doelle--2019|Doelle and Chircop 2019]] ; [[#Climate%20Action%20Tracker--2020c|Climate Action Tracker 2020c]] ). As a step towards this, in 2020, the IMO’s MEPC put forward draft amendments to the MARPOL Convention that would require ships to combine a technical and an operational approach to reduce their carbon intensity. These amendments were formally adopted by the Committee at its session in June 2021.

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