EMEA News
Italy Joins Call for Med ECA
Italy today joined the call to create a new emissions control area (ECA) in the Mediterranean.
At the G7 meeting of Environmental Ministers in Metz, France, the Italian Minister of the Environment, Sergio Costa, and his French counterpart, François Henri Goullet de Rugy, agreed to work on a joint declaration for a combined SECA and NECA - limiting sulfur and NOx respectively.
Italian environmental group Cittadini per l'aria were among those to welcome the move.
"This is good news for all people in the Mediterranean as it contains a timeframe and a meaningful event – the Naples Conference under the Barcelona Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment and the Coastal Region of the Mediterranean - within which all States in the Mediterranean basin will be able to show support for the protection of health of their citizens and the Mediterranean marine environment," said Anna Gerometta, Presidente, Cittadini per l'Aria.
"The citizens of Italian port cities have contributed to this result highlighting for years the unsustainable impact of shipping emissions in their home towns."
Today's development is the latest step forward for the long mooted ECA, which in March also saw Spain back the plan.
In February, non-governmental organisation Nabu said a Med ECA could be in force as early as 2023.
