EU policies to address maritime GHG emissions

The EU Commission committed itself to include emissions from shipping into the existing EU reduction commitment if no international agreement was achieved on a global level. To this aim the EU COM considered four regional policy options in an impact assessment (2011). In this discussion paper the impact of these policy options on GHG emissions has been analysed, concluding that a carefully designed emissions trading scheme (ETS) is the best option from an environmental point of view.