Tasked to Fight Climate Change, a Secretive U.N. Agency Does the Opposite - The New Yor... - 0 views
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It was a breach of the secrecy at the heart of the I.M.O., a clubby United Nations agency on the banks of the Thames that regulates international shipping and is charged with reducing emissions in an industry that burns an oil so thick it might otherwise be turned into asphalt. Shipping produces as much carbon dioxide as all of America’s coal plants combined.
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An agency lawyer underscored that point last fall in addressing the Saudi complaint. “This is a private meeting,” warned the lawyer, Frederick J. Kenney.Next week, the organization is scheduled to enact its first greenhouse gas rules since Paris — regulations that do not cut emissions, have no enforcement mechanism and leave key details shrouded in secrecy. No additional proposals are far along in the rule-making process, meaning additional regulations are likely five years or more away.
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The stakes are high. Shipping, unlike other industries, is not easily regulated nation-by-nation. A Japanese-built tanker, for instance, might be owned by a Greek company and sailed by an Indian crew from China to Australia — all under the flag of Panama.
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Industry officials and the maritime organization say such arrangements give a voice to the experts. “If you don’t involve the people who are actually going to have to deliver, then you’re going to get a poor outcome,” said Guy Platten, secretary general of the International Chamber of Shipping.
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The company, based in Virginia, did all the work and, on paper, the Marshall Islands became home to one of the world’s largest fleets. The government shared in the revenue — roughly $8 million a year as of recently, one official said.Things got thorny, however, when the foreign minister, Tony de Brum, traveled to the I.M.O. in 2015. His stories of his vanishing homeland had given urgency to the Paris talks and he expected a similar reception in London.
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When delegates met last October — five years after Mr. de Brum’s speech — the organization had not taken any action. Proposals like speed limits had been debated and rejected.
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German delegates were so upset that they threatened to oppose the deal, likely triggering a cascade of defections, according to three people involved in the talks. But European Union officials rallied countries behind the compromise, arguing that Europe could not be seen as standing in the way of even limited progress.