The European Community Shipowners’ Association (ECSA) believes that important progress was made last week at the IMO’s MEPC meeting, where there was a general willingness among governments to commit to developing a strategy towards reducing shipping emissions. The European Shipowners said that they are also ready to play their part in this challenge.
“We are confident that IMO will now be able to deliver an ambitious strategy at the next IMO working group meeting in October. There is certainly a strong will from the European shipowners to decarbonise the industry”, said Patrick Verhoeven, ECSA’s Secretary General.
ECSA noted that an initial strategy for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases from the international shipping should be further developed in the next meeting of October 2017 and the next MEPC 72 meeting should adopt it in 2018. The industry believes this should lay out a clear vision and short and medium term measures and quantified CO2 reduction objectives for the sector.
Many shipping companies have already taken steps towards more environmental and sustainable shipping. These early movers have searched for different kinds of solutions to improve the energy efficiency of their fleet. Companies have done major investments on new technological innovations such as upgrading engines and propellers to improve fuel efficiency, LNG-engine technology, non-fossil alternative fuels, electric and hybrid battery systems. Companies have adopted strategies to continuously monitor fuel efficiency on board to reduce the overall fuel consumption.
