ICS Calls on IMO to Make "Dramatic" CO2 Reduction Objectives

ICS says it will propose that IMO should adopt three Aspirational Objectives to reduce shipping's CO2 emissions.

The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) Monday said it has agreed to urge the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to adopt some "dramatic" CO2 reduction objectives.

ICS says the decision, made at its recent AGM in Istanbul, is in order to match the ambition of the Paris Agreement on climate change.   
 
In a submission to IMO Member States, being made in conjunction with other shipping organisations, ICS says it will propose that IMO should adopt three Aspirational Objectives:

• To maintain international shipping's annual total CO2 emissions below 2008 levels;
• To reduce CO2 emissions per tonne-km, as an average across international shipping, by at least 50% by 2050, compared to 2008; and
• To reduce international shipping's total annual CO2 emissions by an agreed percentage by 2050, compared to 2008, as a point on a continuing trajectory of CO2 emissions reduction.

"It is very important that IMO sends a clear and unambiguous signal to the global community that shipping's regulators have agreed some ambitious objectives, with numbers and dates, for reducing the sector's CO2 emissions, in the same way that land-based activity is now covered by government commitments under the Paris Agreement," said ICS Chairman Esben Poulsson.

ICS says it will suggest that IMO should adopt the objectives as part of the initial IMO CO2 reduction strategy to be agreed in 2018, following the adoption of an IMO Roadmap at the request of the industry in 2016. 

The Chamber also reiterated its earlier calls that the CO2 reduction efforts should be a global, IMO led solution, rather than "risk the danger of market-distorting measures at national or regional level."                                        

"Shipping has a very good story to tell about reducing CO2 but this is difficult to convey so long as there is no clear signal from IMO as to what our collective CO2 reduction objectives should be," said Poulsson. 

ICS said the IMO also must not imply any commitment to place a binding cap on the sector's total CO2 emissions, or on the CO2 emissions of individual ships.