For more than 60 years, anyone standing on France’s D-day landing beaches has been able to stare out to sea and imagine the bloody launch of the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe.

New rules to cut the greenhouse gas emissions of the global shipping fleet have finally been agreed in a move politicians hailed as a world first.

New cargo and container ships will have to be built to technical standards that will make them more energy efficient, under a measure approved in London on Friday by the International Maritime Organisation, the United Nations shipping body.

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The UK has failed to cut greenhouse gas emissions across a range of areas and would risk missing its first set of carbon targets if it were not for the recession, the government