IBIA CONVENTION: ICS Wants IMO GHG Pricing to Avoid Unilateral National Carbon Charges

ICS Deputy Secretary General Simon Bennett set out the organisation's position on the carbon regulation debate at the IBIA Annual Convention 2024 in Athens on Wednesday. Image Credit: Ship & Bunker

Shipping industry body ICS is pushing for GHG pricing at the global level to avoid the threat of unilateral charges emerging from individual countries. 

Simon Bennett, deputy secretary general of ICS, set out the organisation's position on the carbon regulation debate at the IBIA Annual Convention 2024 in Athens on Wednesday.

"IMO -- we hope -- is going to develop a maritime GHG emissions pricing mechanism," Bennett said at the event.

"Within ICS, we've been very strong advocates of this for the last 10 years really, because we recognize that in the absence of an IMO measure, then we're going to be faced with unilateral national carbon charges being applied to ships."

The organisation supports a simple levy on GHG emissions from shipping to encourage a shift into using lower-carbon fuels.

"Within ICS, we've always advocated a flat rate contribution, a levy-based system," Bennett said.

"At the moment, it's uncertain whether we will have a levy-based system or whether it will be something more complicated, akin to a trading system, though it's fair to say the majority of IMO states do support a flat-rate levy."

Bennett believes GHG intensity reduction requirements will be ramped up significantly for the years after 2030.

"We anticipate the GHG reductions required between now and 2030 will be relatively modest, although the EU is pushing for very high numbers," he said at the convention.

"But I think we have to anticipate in the 2030s the GHG intensity reductions required are going to be extremely, extremely aggressive, because the goal, of course, is to reach that really ambitious goal of net zero for 2050."