The provisional agreement on the reform of the Emissions Trading System (ETS) reached by the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers and the European Commission was approved by the Member States.
“European shipowners have a strong interest to decarbonise the industry and we think it is the right decision that the EU will leave regulation of shipping’s CO2 emissions to the International Maritime Organization”, commented Martin Dorsman, ECSA’s Secretary General. “The IMO is currently busy drawing up its strategy for reducing CO2 emissions from the international shipping. IMO is the organisation to regulate our global industry”, he concluded.
According to European Shipowners, the IMO has certain agreed milestones in its plan of global climate strategy. In April 2018, the IMO should adopt an initial strategy for comprehensive emissions reductions from ships and in 2023 it should adopt a final strategy.
In the last IMO intersessional meeting in October, the industry proposed that the sector’s total CO2 emissions should not increase above 2008 levels, thus establishing 2008 as the year of peak emissions from shipping, and that IMO should agree upon reduction percentages per ton-km as well as upon an reduction percentage by which the total emissions from the sector should be reduced by 2050.
Adding its voice on the issue, ICS has recently said that this demonstrates confidence within the EU institutions in the current progress being made at IMO to develop an ambitious strategy that will deliver additional CO2 reduction measures, consistent with the shipping industry’s own vision of zero emissions, as soon as possible.
The EU Emissions Trading Scheme puts a cap on the CO2 emitted by more than 11,000 installations in the power sector and energy intensive industry through a market-based cap and trade system.
