The shipowning community does not find fault completely with regulation, be it environmentally or technically. And the industry is aware of the own work that needs to be done. Nonetheless, there is criticism against regulators
As a summit of shipowners groups, the annual International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) Shipping Conference was held in London in[ds_preview] September, providing some 150 delegates from national shipowner association members with »a flavour of different issues in ICS’s in-tray,« as ICS Secretary General, Peter Hinchliffe, emphasized.
Making his maiden speech as ICS Chairman since his election in June, Esben Poulsson highlighted three main challenges facing shipowners: unilateralism, environmental pressures and shipping’s poor image. All were ultimately connected in that politicians’ growing interest in shipping needs to be better informed, he argued.
Kitack Lim, Secretary General of the IMO, endorsed Poulsson’s warning about the dangers of regional or national regulations on shipping replacing truly global ones. Shipping was by definition international, he said, and »having different rules apply at each end of a ship’s voyage makes no sense.«
Environmental issues then moved centre stage as Ian Parry, an environmental fiscal policy expert from the International Monetary Fund, outlined IMF’s estimations that introduction of a possible carbon tax on shipping by 2020 of 25$ per ton of CO2 emissions would raise the price of fuel by 7.5$/ton, and therefore the price of imported foods by roughly an average of 0.5%, but could lead to a 3.4% reduction in CO2 and generate annual revenues of 25.3 bn $. Such a fuel tax could be collected from the refiners, distributors or ship operators, he added, and was preferable as a Market-Based Measure to an Emissions Trading Scheme as it was more transparent and would encourage shipowners’ investments in emissions abatement technology.
Simon Bennet, ICS Director of Policy & External Relations, pointed out that shipping had already made good progress on reducing its airborne emissions – for example with MARPOL Annex VI and EEDI and SEEMP requirements – but that following the COP21 Paris Agreement in December shipping still needs to be do more. For this reason the ICS will be proposing to the IMO MEPC 70 meeting in October that shipping industry draw up its own Intended IMO Determined Contribution (IIDC) targets on CO2 reduction to match the Intended National Determined Contribution (INDC) goals that countries have signed up to under COP21, he informed.
Alfred Hartmann, President of German Shipowners’ Association VDR, said the shipping industry needed to be »ambitious« in its search for fuel choices that would reduce CO2, but that the authorities had to follow suit. He cited current restrictions on the use of LNG in the port of Hamburg as »something we have to look into for the future.«
Seaborne emissions also occupied much discussion at the conference, with ICS Technical Director Jonathan Spremulli providing an update on the international Ballast Water Management (BWM Convention), now set to enter into force in late 2017, and Kathy Metcalf, President of the Chamber of Shipping of America, trying to explain some of the intricacies of more onerous US requirements for BWM equipment compliance, a situation ICS finds unacceptable especially since fitting systems can cost up to $5m per ship, according to Spremulli.
ED
