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The World Wide Fund (WWF) for Nature has said that revenues obtained from a global bunker tax could be used to help the planet's less developed countries fight climate change.

Commenting on what the WWF refers to as the 'disagreement between developed and developing countries' about how to cut ship emissions and who should participate, the WWF’s Head of Transport Policy, Peter Lockley, said “Every country should participate in a global shipping scheme, but revenues generated by a levy on fuel, or by auctioning emissions permits, might go exclusively towards helping developing countries fight climate change.

Speaking ahead of this week's 59th session of the International Maritime Organization's (IMO) Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) Meeting in London, Lockley added: “That way, poorer nations will ultimately receive more than they pay in. But, to be credible, rich countries must show they are willing to transfer this money and not keep it to plug budget deficits at home.

“Developed countries have long argued that the emissions belong to no individual country – so they can’t now lay claim to the proceeds of any levy on those emissions.

“The least the IMO can do at this session is to pass a resolution guaranteeing the revenues will go to developing countries,” Lockley added.

The WWF also listed its 'shocking shipping facts', which included the following two statements:

• Since 1997, CO2 from shipping has more than doubled, to 870 million tonnes a year – or 2.7% of global CO2 emissions – that’s more than the entire emissions of the UK, Germany or Canada.

• If shipping emissions carry on unchecked, they could make up 6% of global CO2 emissions by 2020 and up to 50% of the total by 2050 (if other sources are curbed down to ‘safe’ levels).

"We can’t risk another decade of delay. If the IMO doesn’t take action now, WWF and other NGOs will press for shipping targets to be imposed at Copenhagen – 40% below 1990 levels by 2020, 80% by 2050 – and ask for the UNFCCC, the UN climate change body, to take over negotiations from the IMO," the WWF said.