Isra-Mart srl: Durban negotiators plan to tap shipping for $100bn climate fund

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A tax on the shipping industry could provide finance for a fund to help poorer countries tackle climate change, according to a formal proposal published at the Durban climate summit today.

The document proposes that "financial resources" are raised through unspecified measures designed and implemented by the International Maritime Organisation as part of efforts to cut the sector's emissions.

It adds that the resulting revenue should be funnelled towards the $100bn Green Climate Fund in order to compensate developing countries whose own fleets might be affected by the levy.

The idea has been discussed at UN level for some time, but today's document is significant as it represents the first formal proposals on how the Green Climate Fund could be financed.

Prior to the Durban summit, experts predicted that the fund, agreed at the Copenhagen summit in 2009, might be one of the few areas of progress.

However, reports emerged last week that the US, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia have refused to accept a draft plan to establish the fund.

Green campaigners have long argued that a tax on shipping would have the dual effect of providing much needed finance at the same time as cutting carbon emissions from the sector, which is currently outside global emissions targets set by the Kyoto treaty.

Shipping is responsible for around three per cent of total global emissions, but this is expected to grow dramatically over the coming years in line with the expansion in global trade.

A report by WWF and Oxfam earlier this year calculated that a $25 per tonne tax on bunker fuel could generate $25bn a year in receipts by 2020, adding that more than $10bn of this could go to climate aid.

The shipping industry is broadly supportive of such a scheme as long as it is applied globally.

Prior to Durban, the International Chamber of Shipping joined green groups to call for countries to lay the ground for a market-based measure addressing emissions that could be in place by 2015.