Norway & Singapore take the helm

The environment ministers from Norway and Singapore will today take over the bunker issue and chair a meeting with all Parties to discuss key outstanding issues: targets, finance and how to handle the issue of "common but differentiated responsibility" issue. There will be no drafting just an attempt to find the compromise that attracts most support. They are due to report back to the ministerial plenary later in the day. The choice of Norway and Singapore will be seen as unfortunate in some quarters. Norway has recently come under criticism for watering down its own bunker proposals early in the process and Singapore has been less that supportive on bunkers at ICAO and has the world's fifth largest fleet, with an open ship register ("flag of convenience").