EMEA News
ICS Member Associations Agree on Campaign to Urge EU to Align CO2 Regs with IMO
The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) Monday announced that its member national shipowners' associations have agreed to launch a campaign to persuade the European Union (EU) that aligning its regulations on CO2 shipping emissions monitoring with that of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) is of "vital necessity."
"While ICS fully supports the mandatory IMO data collection mechanism, many non-EU governments initially had some reservations which were only overcome by the industry arguing that the alternative to IMO making progress would be a unilateral regional regime being imposed by the EU," said Esben Poulsson, newly elected ICS Chairman, at the organisation's annual general meeting last week.
"The EU needs to live up to its side of the bargain and align its regime with the IMO system that's now been agreed by the entire international community."
Poulsson says that one of the key concerns is that the EU could refuse to align its regulations with that of IMO, a move that may be perceived by other governments as an indication of bad faith, potentially dampening momentum of further CO2 reduction measures by IMO.
"Quite frankly, the regional verification mechanism being developed by the EU will not be compatible with the way in which the IMO regime will be enforced by maritime flag states. It's therefore going to be completely unfit for purpose,"explained Poulsson.
In addition, ICS is said to believe that many non-EU shipping nations are likely to be "strongly opposed" to rules that would require their ships to submit commercially sensitive information for publication by the European Commission - something that would not be required under the under the IMO's own regulations.
Poulsson says that an 80 percent oil price rise since January highlights how it is in shipowners' interest reduce fuel consumption wherever possible, which cuts CO2 in the process, an aim that he says will be further supported by IMO action.
"The last thing we want is intransigence from EU climate change officials that will seriously frustrate and complicate this IMO process, which is what we fear will happen if the EU refuses to do what it promised to do," concluded Poulsson.
The ICS says that, in addition to working with the European Community Shipowners' Associations (ECSA), the organisation will also look for support from governments outside EU, such as U.S., China, and other countries in Asia.
In April, ICS commended IMO progress toward the adoption of a global CO2 data collection system at the Marine Environment Protection Committee's (MEPC's) 69th session (MEPC 69).
