T&E calls on the EU to broaden the scope of the rules to decarbonise shipping to include ships under 5,000 GRT and those serving the offshore industry

Now the environmental organization believes that the EU is also wrong to focus its strategy to decarbonise transport maritime only on large ships. To be included in the field of application of the EU ETS system, in fact, are only ships over five thousand tons of gross tonnage. For Transport & Environment, this means the non-insertion in the system ETS of ships of less tonnage than overall in 2020 produced CO2 emissions of 25.8 million tonnes, volume - noted the association - similar to that of the carbon dioxide emissions of Denmark, out of a total of almost 130 million tons of CO2 produced every year from the maritime industry of the European Union. According to T&E, 'the arbitrary exemption of ships such as those serving the oil and gas extraction plants, as well as of yachts, will undermine EU maritime legislation and will cause millions of tons of emissions escape the norms."

Transport & Environment, in particular, highlighted that the proposal of the European Commission of last July 14 for the carbon pricing for shipping, as well as exempting from scope of the system for both fishing vessels and fishing vessels military, excludes precisely the ships at the service of industry offshore despite - underlined T&E - emit on average more than oil tankers and bulk carriers. "This - denounced the association - it means that little more than the half of European ships are exempted from the proposal despite accounting for almost 20% of transport emissions EU maritime, twice as much as initially the The Commission had argued that the exemption would cover.'

"It's positive," said Jacob Armstrong, responsabile per la sostenibilità dello shipping at T&E - that the EU is finally trying to cope with the terrible climate impact of maritime transport. However, his proposal based on unjustified loopholes leaves out too many ships highly polluting. The EU - urged Armstrong - must review its own maritime transport laws to ensure that millions of tonnes of CO2 are included in the regulations'. Transport & Environment's call is for the EU to establish as a reference threshold for CO2 emissions, a quantity annual of one thousand tons, threshold that - observed the association - would guarantee the coverage of 12% more emissions compared to the current proposal formulated by the European Commission.