The International Maritime Organisation reached a number of important decisions on ship emissions at its 70th MEPC meeting end of October. Most significantly, it agreed on a roadmap to develop a comprehensive strategy to curb CO2 emissions from international shipping.
This result is in no small part due to the input of the shipping industry that came about under the leadership of ICS. The pro-active submissions international shipping organisations made ahead of the last two MEPC meetings were positively received by Member States, policy-makers and stakeholders, also in the European Union.
ECSA says that promotes the roadmap at European level. Its two-staged approach, with an initial strategy to be decided in 2018, and a final plan to be adopted in 2023, taking into account real emission data, is entirely consistent with the Paris Climate Agreement.
Specifically, the roadmap must deliver ambitious short, mid and long term measures, which will allow the shipping industry to contribute its fair and proportionate share in meeting the Paris’ target. Furthermore, at its meeting of 6 December, ECSA’s Board of Directors adopted the following statement on behalf of the national shipowners’ associations of the EU and Norway:
1. The shipping sector shall further reduce its CO2 emissions with a comparable level of ambition as the rest of the world economy to contribute its fair and proportionate share in meeting the 2 degrees’ target of the Paris Climate Agreement.
2. To do this, IMO Member States must now implement the roadmap adopted at MEPC 70 without delay.
3. ECSA encourages the industry to continue developing ambitious short, mid and long term measures with Member States, in line with the IMO roadmap and the Paris Climate Agreement.
4. ECSA fully supports the work industry is doing to assess a range of technical and other options and their potential impacts against various scenarios, in order to contribute to the formulation of the initial IMO strategy to be agreed in spring 2018.
ECSA communicated the foresaid statement through an open letter as an encouragement for ICS to continue on the positive élan demonstrated during the past year. ECSA further stated ,
“Our membership stands united in its commitment to the four above points and will contribute along these lines to the ongoing work in ICS and IMO.
We fully endorse the ICS leadership in reducing CO2 emissions of global shipping and we look forward to a concrete result in 2018. We will work actively on your side and ensure that progress is duly communicated to European policy-makers and stakeholders.”
Source: ECSA
