Huw Irranca-Davies – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Huw Irranca-Davies on 2016-01-11.
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps the Government is taking to reduce (a) carbon emissions and (b) air pollution from maritime transport and air transport.
Andrew Jones
Given the international nature of the maritime and aviation sectors, the UK works primarily through UN’s International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and International Maritime Organization (IMO) to ensure strong action on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions at a global level is taken.
We are working with other states in ICAO to agree a global CO2 standard for aircraft and a global market-based measure to tackle aviation emissions growth, both of which will be subject to important decisions in 2016. We also continue to support the use of regional emissions measures, such as the Aviation EU Emissions Trading Scheme in the absence of a global measure. On air pollution from aviation, we are also working in ICAO to reduce particulate matter emissions, following the organisation’s introduction of a standard to reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions.
With maritime emissions, the UK is working in the IMO towards developing global data collection systems on ships’ CO2 energy efficiency. Moreover, following the introduction of a new 0.1 per cent sulphur limit on 1 January 2015, there has been a significant reduction in sulphur pollutants emitted by ships operating in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea emission control areas.
