During the G7 summit in Biarritz, the French President Emmanuel Macron suggested that reducing ships’ speed would be one way to decrease maritime transport’s carbon emissions footprint. This is a proposal that Greece has supported as well.
Emmanuel Macron believes that reducing speed would be ‘one of the most efficient ways of reducing emissions’. For this reason France recommended using this measure, in IMO during April.
In addition, cutting speed would also limit sound pollution, thus reducing the risk of colliding with whales.
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In April this year France provided a submission to the IMO, calling fora worldwide speed limit for shipping. Nevertheless, France admitted that for certain ship types, such as passenger ships, the measure would not work.
Greece has supported France in its call reducing vessels’ speed.
As part of improving the environmental footprint, CMA CGM committed not to use the Northern Sea Route, which due to global warming is navigable.
Moreover, France is pushing for more regulation of pollutant emissions in the Mediterranean by 2022, along the lines of current rules for the Channel and the North Sea, as well as the Baltic Sea.
However, ports will also have to be targeted as vessels still burn fuel even when they are at rest. A solution to this could be to plug them into the ports’ electric supply, but that is not always possible.