New standards will save the industry more than 220 mill tonnes of CO2
The NGO Carbon War Room (CWR) said that it welcomed the IMOs announcement to mandate energy efficiency ratings for the international shipping fleet.
The CWR said that the IMO resolution signals a key shift in the regulatory landscape of shipping, which has hitherto not required, even at the national level, any improvement in the sectors footprint, currently growing at between 3% and 4% a year.
Peter Boyd, Carbon War Room COO, said: The IMO has an outstanding record in developing international agreements on safety and has drawn on this to make the first steps towards reducing the industrys carbon footprint. We applaud the work of the secretariat here in finding agreement in the international climate change debate.
The CWR said that it had consistently argued that widely available energy efficiency ratings offer a proven means of instituting best practice design in energy-intensive applications.
In December 2010, the organisation launched shippingefficiency.org , which made energy efficiency ratings for the 60,000-strong oceangoing fleet freely available for the first time, using the IMO-developed methodology.
Peter Boyd added: There is a $70 bill subsidy for environmental improvement in shipping, called fuel savings from more efficient vessels. The IMO decision on newbuilds should result in fuel savings of $5 bill annually by 2020 (and CO2 reductions of over 20 mill tones).
(These) new standards if applied to all ships, not just newbuilds, would save the industry more than 220 mill tonnes of CO2 and $50 bill a year. Chasing all profitable efficiency savings could save even more. This is a historic move by the IMO but theres a bigger environmental and economic opportunity out there thats too good to miss, he said.
Following the IMOs announcement, CWR will deliver a letter to IMO delegates calling for the mandatory use of energy efficiency ratings across the entire fleet, signed by 50 organisations, including owner/operators of 60 mill tonnes of vessels.
Signatories include Denmarks Maersk Line and TORM, Canadas Teekay, US Heidmar and Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics of Norway/Sweden. German consumer electronics company Schneider Electric has also signed, along with the Port of Los Angeles and the NGO Forum for the Future.
Source: Tanker Operator
