ECSA Issues Open Letter, Applauds ICS on IMO's CO2 Roadmap

ECSA says ICS' leadership and "pro-active" submissions helped IMO agree to develop a CO2 roadmap.

The European Community Shipowners' Associations (ECSA), through an open letter signed by  ECSA President Niels Smedegaard and ECSA Secretary General Patrick Verhoeven, applauded the International Chamber of Shipping's (ICS') leadership and "pro-active" submissions to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) for the development of a CO2 roadmap for reducing such emissions among international shipping.

As Ship & Bunker reported at the end of October, ICS welcomed a decision by IMO at the 70th session of the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC 70) to develop a Road Map for addressing CO2 emissions from international shipping, with initial CO2 reduction commitments to be agreed to by 2018.

"We communicate the statement via this open letter as an encouragement for ICS to continue on the positive élan demonstrated during the past year. Our membership stands united in its commitment to the four above points and will contribute along these lines to the ongoing work in ICS and IMO," stated ECSA in the letter.

"We fully endorse the ICS leadership in reducing CO2 emissions of global shipping and we look forward to a concrete result in 2018. We will work actively on your side and ensure that progress is duly communicated to European policy-makers and stakeholders."

On December 6, ECSA says its Board of Directors adopted a statement on behalf of EU and Norway's national shipowners' associations that sets out its position that the shipping sector must "reduce its CO2 emissions with a comparable level of ambition as the rest of the world economy to contribute its fair and proportionate share in meeting the 2 degrees target of the Paris Climate Agreement."

ECSA says that, to be "credible," the roadmap must deliver ambitious measures over the short, mid, and long term period, enabling the shipping industry to contribute its fair share toward meeting the target set out by the Paris agreement, and, to be effective, IMO Member States must implement the roadmap adopted at MEPC 70 as soon as possible.

Further, ECSA expressed its full support for the work being completed by the shipping industry to assess the potential impacts of various technical tools and other options against various scenarios, in order to assist in the development of IMO's initial strategy to be agreed upon in the spring of 2018.

"As ECSA, we actively promote the roadmap at European level. Its two-staged approach, with an initial strategy to be decided in 2018, and a final plan to be adopted in 2023, taking into account real emission data, is entirely consistent with the Paris Climate Agreement," the organisation said in the letter.

In early November, ICS told the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 22nd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 22) in Marrakesh that IMO's CO2 roadmap for shipping is a "significant decision" that will go "much further" than the Paris Agreement.