How Not to Fight Climate Change, Shipping Edition

The shipping industry accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than airplanes, buses or trains. Yet it was not included in last year’s Paris accord -- and an attempt last month to redress this failure manages to be both unambitious and impractical.

The world’s 90,000 shipping vessels burn about five million barrels of petroleum products each day, and their emissions are expected to increase as much as five-fold by 2050. In part because it’s not clear which countries should be accountable for the emissions of any particular ship, the industry has not been part of any recent international climate agreements.