02 Dec 13 - 17:38
ICS suggesting a possible way forward to further reduce CO2 emissions
The
International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) - the worldwide trade
association for shipowners - has made an important written submission to
the United Nations International Maritime Organization (IMO) suggesting
a possible way forward with respect to complex discussions about
additional global regulations to further reduce CO2 emissions from
merchant ships.
In particular, ICS wishes to ensure the primacy of a global IMO
framework for addressing the reduction of shipping's CO2 emissions in
the face of proposals by the European Commission for unilateral regional
regulations that will apply to international shipping trading to the
EU.
In a carefully worded ‘political' paper, ICS has suggested that IMO
Member States should initially focus on developing regulations for the
mandatory reporting of fuel consumption and CO2 emissions by
internationally trading ships, deferring further discussions on how the
information collected might subsequently be used to develop additional
efficiency measures.
The latter include politically controversial proposals for developing
tools to measure and benchmark the operational efficiency of individual
ships, or even the development of Market Based Measures through which
ships might be charged depending on how efficient they are deemed to be.
ICS hopes that if governments can agree to approach their work in
distinct stages, IMO Member States can proceed towards the early
adoption of mandatory CO2 monitoring and reporting measures that would
be enforced worldwide.
ICS suggests this could be done relatively quickly, and might be
acceptable to those governments that may not yet be ready to commit to
more radical CO2 reduction measures for shipping such as efficiency
indexing. ICS believes that focusing on monitoring and reporting
measures now would not prejudice the positions of such countries at the
high-level United Nations climate change talks on a replacement for the
Kyoto Protocol, which are not scheduled to be completed by UNFCCC until
2015.
ICS argues that if IMO can make further progress one step at a time -
the so called ‘three phase' approach which has already been proposed by
the United States - this will have little negative impact on the
industry's efforts to continue reducing CO2 emissions. CO2 emissions
reductions are already very incentivised by the unprecedented high cost
of marine fuel, which is expected to increase further due to the
introduction of separate IMO requirements to burn low sulphur fuel.
This is already the industry's largest variable operating cost,
typically now amounting, over a ship's life, to about three times the
capital cost of the ship itself.
"The recent impasse at IMO on making further progress is due to
difficulties unconnected with shipping and imported from the UNFCCC"
explained ICS Secretary General, Peter Hinchliffe. "However, IMO is now
confronted by the danger of unilateral action by the European Union
which is already considering a draft Regulation on monitoring and
reporting of ships' emissions which risks destroying the possibility of a
global approach towards shipping and CO2."
ICS's main objection to the draft EU Regulation (as currently
proposed by the European Commission) is not so much with the objective
as with the timing and the level of detail which it contains. If the EU
measures on monitoring and reporting ships' CO2 emissions are adopted
in advance of IMO developing its own global measure, it may be
impossible to have a global regime that will be compatible with the EU
approach. "Unless the EU expects the rest of the world to follow its
unilateral approach to the letter?" said Mr Hinchliffe.
If there is no uniform global regime on monitoring and reporting of
CO2 emissions from ships it is difficult to see how IMO can develop
other global measures on CO2 for shipping. "Quite a lot is therefore at
stake" said Mr Hinchliffe.
The ICS submission, which has involved several weeks of negotiations
between ICS member national shipowners' associations, is therefore
intended to suggest a possible way forward so that IMO can demonstrate
that it is indeed making progress to ensure that a global approach is
maintained towards this critically important issue.
"We are a global industry requiring global rules," said Mr Hinchliffe. "Otherwise we have chaos and inefficiency."
Source: ICS
