IMO Watchers Divided on Whether Market-Based Measure Consensus Has Emerged

The IMO's MEPC meets again next month. Image Credit: Ship & Bunker

International Maritime Organisation observers reporting on discussions at the UN body's Intersessional Working Group on the Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Ships (ISWG-GHG) last week have come out with varying accounts of how much progress was made.

The working group, which reports to the Marine Environment Protection Committee that meets next month, was discussing mid-term measures on GHG emissions, and the shift from phase 1 to phase 2 of the MEPC's plan.

A range of market-based measures seeking to charge the shipping industry for its emissions were up for discussion.

Maritime advisory service UMAS struck a strongly positive tone in its interpretation of the meeting.

"The meeting concluded that there was now consensus to price GHG emissions at IMO," the organisation said in an emailed statement.

"This is a major development -- the concept of market-based measures (MBMs) has been on the table at IMO for more than a decade and often debated with large disagreements between member states.

"There are a range of possible policy mechanisms (technical measures like mandates and economic/market-based measures) which will now go through for further discussion, refinement and prioritisation."

But Edmund Hughes, the former head of air pollution and energy efficiency at the IMO who had helped to draft its initial GHG strategy, disagreed.

"I'm not sure how other commentators seem to think there is [consensus]," he wrote on LinkedIn.

Hughes was commenting on a report from the meeting by Harilaos Psaraftis of the Technical University of Denmark, who had given a less hopeful account.

"The discussion on mid-term measures including MBMs was (as expected) inconclusive," Psaraftis said.

"Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (which has been invoked many times by its advocates- read Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and others) is still a big obstacle in these discussions and surely an issue of continuing divergence."

'Common But Differentiated Responsibilities' refers to the principle of more developed countries having more responsibility for climate change than less developed ones, and thus taking a greater role in mitigating it. The principle has been a point of division at the IMO in the past.

Simon Bergulf, senior director for ESG, public and regulatory affairs at container line AP Moller-Maersk, gave a positive account of the meeting but stopped short of saying consensus had emerged.

"It is clear that this weeks discussions on suggested market based measures marks a very substantial shift in gears for the organization and a point of no return when it comes to mid and long-term measures," Bergulf said on LinkedIn on Saturday.

"Concrete proposals are coming from literally all parts of the world, we are now firmly digging ourselves into discussing a global GHG price."