EU lawmaker warns CO2 caps in danger

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A key European Union lawmaker, Swedish liberal Lena Ek, said the EU's Emission Trading Scheme was in danger of being undermined and proposed to include the shipping sector in the scheme from 2013.

The inclusion of shipping would be a surprise move, not a part of earlier proposals made by the EU's executive European Commission.

The EU parliament is preparing to vote on changes to Europe's flagship weapon against climate change -- a carbon market that caps the greenhouse gases produced by individual, heavy industrial companies, ranging from steelmakers to power generators across the 27-nation bloc.

The European Parliament voted in July to include aviation in the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) for the first time from 2012, prompting protests from airlines, backing earlier proposals made by the Commission in January.

Ek, who is guiding the legislation through the influential industry committee, told Reuters in an interview that she would ask the legislature's Industry Committee on Thursday to back a report calling for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from shipping to be included too.

"When it comes to regulation of CO2 emissions from shipping, there is nothing -- not nationally, not regionally, or globally," Ek said on Wednesday.

"Every sector has to contribute. I have included the inclusion of shipping in my report on ETS."

DEEP DIVISIONS

Ek said politicians were deeply divided on measures to protect heavy industry and some, led by a group of German Conservatives, were seeking changes that would undermine the entire ETS system.

"It could be by undermining the principle of auctioning permits, or by handing out so many free allowances that you don't have a market anymore," she said.

She also called for a new mechanism to review EU goals if a global agreement on CO2 is reached.

As part of its drive to lead the world in fighting climate change, the 27-country EU has committed to cutting carbon dioxide emissions by one fifth by 2020, compared to 1990 levels.

It is also considering increasing the cut to 30 percent if big countries such as China, Russia and the United States commit to their own reductions in global climate treaty talks.

But Ek said it would be more appropriate to review EU goals with a view to keeping increases in global temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius.

"That 2 degree figure is the most important thing," she said. "My view is we'd probably have to raise our ambitions to meet that."

The executive European Commission had considered bringing shipping into the ETS but did not include it in the legislative package now going through parliament. If the full house adopted Ek's report, it would form the basis for negotiations with EU member states on the final shape of the law later this year.

Shipping contributed about 1.5 percent of total global CO2 emissions from energy in 2005, analysts estimate, compared to about 2 percent from international aviation.

Both sectors are excluded from national measures of CO2 emissions under the Kyoto Protocol on global warming -- the only emissions excluded from inventories under the treaty which critics say leaves them in a climate policy blind spot.

(Reporting by Pete Harrison, writing by Paul Taylor and Gerard Wynn; Editing by Anthony Barker)