Join us and other activists as the first delegates arrive for crucial negotiations to determine carbon emissions from international shipping - and again on Monday 3rd July

Where? Outside the headquarters of the International Maritime Organization on the Albert Embankment in London, SE1 7SR

When? Most delegates will be arriving 8.30-9.00 for a 9.30am meeting start, so we need to be there by 8.30.

What's at stake?

Targets for reducing shipping's climate impact are up for negotiation at IMO meetings taking place 26-30 June and 3-7 July. Net Zero by 2050 is on the table - but that will have little force to drive the short term emissions cuts that are desperately needed. We need more countries to support proposals to halve shipping emissions by 2030.

Global shipping emits more carbon than any but the most polluting countries (China, the US, India, Russia and Japan), accounting for around 3% of global emissions. But, like aviation, it escapes regulation within the UN climate process because of its transnational status.

The shipping industry also largely avoids taxation because what happens on the high seas is not in the jurisdiction of any single government. Around three-quarters of merchant ships are registered under ‘flags of convenience’. More than half of the world’s fleet is registered in just five states: Liberia, Malta, Panama, the Marshall Islands and the Bahamas.

The scale of the industry is massive. Around 90% of global trade is carried by sea in a merchant fleet of around 50,000 ships. The largest of these ships are around 400 metres long. To put this in context, the Eiffel tower is 300m tall, and football pitches are 90-120m long. Forty percent of the goods carried are actually fossil fuels - coal, oil and gas.

The industry is regulated by the International Maritime Organization, which a 2018 report by Transparency International found was subject to undue influence by the shipping industry and certain member states, as well as secrecy: IMO reports of meetings do not reveal the positions taken by individual representatives, while journalists are forbidden from naming speakers at meetings without gaining their consent.

There are solutions available to make ships less polluting. One simple one is to simply travel more slowly, and change the archaic system whereby ship owners are usually obliged in their contracts to deliver cargo to sail as fast as they can to the next port - but must then wait around for an available spot. The average transportation fleet spends 10% of its lifetime waiting outside ports. Since engines are still on to supply power to the ship, this adds to local air pollution. Alternative technologies include incorporating wind power.

Could the shipping industry help fund climate action? A group of Pacific nations is proposing a carbon levy which could help incentivise a switch to lower carbon options, and in the meantime raise up to $100 billion a year to plug the gap in funding desperately needed by countries especially vulnerable to climate change.

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