UK Emissions Trading Scope Expansion: Maritime
This consultation is open for responses
Respond to this consultationSummary
The UK ETS Authority proposes expanding the emissions trading scheme to cover maritime sector from 2026, applying carbon pricing to shipping fuels that currently do not reflect environmental costs. The consultation covers scope definitions, cap adjustments, operator requirements, and potential future expansion to international routes. Maritime operators would need to purchase allowances for their emissions, creating a direct carbon cost.
Why it matters
This is redistributive carbon policy that treats emissions symptoms rather than addressing energy supply constraints. As such, it imposes costs on maritime operators without changing electricity market structure or grid development incentives.
Key facts
- •Maritime inclusion planned for 2026
- •Covers domestic voyages with unspecified thresholds
- •May include methane and nitrous oxide emissions
- •Future review planned for international route coverage
- •Requires monitoring, reporting and verification by operators
Timeline
Areas affected
Related programmes
Memo
The UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS) Authority (UK Government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs for Northern Ireland) is seeking input on a number of proposals to expand the scheme to the maritime sector. We envisage that including maritime within the UK ETS can help overcome a key barrier to decarbonising the sector, which is that the prices of maritime fuels currently do not reflect their environmental costs. Including the maritime sector within the scheme could also strengthen the incentive to adopt low carbon fuels, and support deployment of fuel-efficient technologies and the introduction of fuel-efficient operating practices. The purpose of this consultation is to provide more detail and consult on the implementation of how maritime will be incorporated in the scheme from 2026 and to propose and consult on potential future expansion of the UK ETS to additional maritime emissions. In particular, it seeks views on: * the scope of the scheme (definition of a domestic voyage, thresholds for inclusion, the inclusion of methane and nitrous oxide emissions and exemptions from the scheme) * details around how to adjust the UK ETS cap to include emissions from the maritime sector * participating in the scheme (regulatory regime and operator requirements, monitoring, reporting and verification, point of obligation and guidance) * impacts of the scheme (decarbonisation impacts, potential distributional impacts and carbon leakage risk; equality considerations) * potential future expansion of the UK ETS to additional maritime emissions, with a future review of the threshold and coverage of international routes This consultation is open to anyone, but we expect it to be of greatest interest to: * the shipping industry * non-governmental organisations (NGOs) * academics and thinktanks * any individual or organisation that has an interest, directly or indirectly in the expansion of the UK ETS and/or the adjustment to the cap of the scheme