ICS secretary general, Peter Hinchliffe, said: “The adoption of the ‘road map’ is a significant decision by IMO member states that will give further impetus to the substantial CO2 reductions that are already being delivered by technical and operational measures, and the binding global CO2 reduction regulations for shipping adopted by IMO in 2011, four years before the Paris Agreement.”
However, ICS said the IMO ‘road map’ will go much further than the Paris Agreement. “The final stage of the ‘road map’ to be enacted by 2023 should establish a global mechanism for ensuring that these IMO CO2 reduction commitments will actually be delivered,” Hinchliffe said.
ICS stressed that the MEPC agreement last week on a mandatory global CO2 data collection system for shipping was also a significant achievement. This will enable the initial CO2 commitments agreed in 2018 to be further refined using the very latest data on ships’ emissions and transport work which will become fully available from 2019.
Most importantly, the IMO data system will inform the development of a mechanism by IMO for ensuring that the CO2 reduction commitments are met, the ICS said..
This will include deciding the extent to which technical and operational measures alone might be insufficient to deliver the IMO CO2 reduction commitments that are initially agreed in 2018. The shipping sector actually reduced its total CO2 emissions by more than 10% between 2007 and 2012, and projections for future growth in maritime trade demand are now being revised downwards, compared to those used in the most recent 2014 IMO Green House Study.
ICS also said that it was pleased that the significance of the IMO agreements has already been publicly acknowledged by the European Commission. It is therefore hoped that every effort will be made by the EU to align its regional regulation on CO2 reporting by ships with that now agreed by all IMO members and that the EU will support the new momentum rather than developing unilateral measures, such as the incorporation of international shipping into the EU Emissions Trading System (which is still being discussed in the European Parliament).
The Chamber criticised the number of environmentalist NGOs, which immediately criticised the IMO and their persistence in encouraging the EU to adopt regional regulation. CO2 reduction from shipping is a global challenge, which can only be solved meaningfully by global agreement not at regional level.
As for the Ballast Water Convention, ICS also welcomed the adoption of the revised mandatory and more robust G8 Type Approval Guidelines for ballast water treatment systems (BWTS), in advance of the entry into force of the BWMC in September next year.
The adoption of BWMC should do much to increase the confidence of shipowners that the expensive new equipment, which they are now required to install, will be fit for purpose and acceptable to Port State Control authorities worldwide.
However, ICS expressed disappointment that a number of important issues will not be fully resolved until after the Convention enters into force. This includes the details of the implementation schedule, given the serious shortage of global drydock capacity for retrofitting existing ships and hence the impossibility of meeting the current installation deadlines.
This uncertainty is further compounded by the US, which continues to use a different type approval regime and implementation schedule to that agreed by IMO.
The impacts of the outcome of the recent MEPC discussions are complicated. But ICS said that it be reviewing the implications, and issuing updated advice for shipowners to assist when taking difficult decisions about the selection and installation of new equipment.
Turning to the sulphur cap, the ICS welcomed the fact that IMO members have taken a clear decision about the implementation date of the global sulphur cap, confirming that the requirement for marine fuel to have a sulphur content of 0.5% or less (outside ECAs) will be implemented in 2020.
However, it will have a significant impact on the economics of shipping – compliant fuel is expected to cost between 50% and 100% more than the residual fuel that most ships currently burn.
There is much to do between now and 2020 to ensure that sufficient quantities of compliant marine fuel of the right quality will indeed be available, and that this radical switch over to cleaner fuels will be implemented smoothly, in a harmonised manner, without distorting shipping markets or having negative impacts on the movement of world trade, the ICS said.