ECSA Urges EU Member States to Work with IMO on Shipping's CO2 Reduction Measures

ECSA this week urged EU Member States to "proactively engage" IMO on CO2 reduction measures. File Image / Pixabay

Tor Christian Sletner, the Chairman of European Community Shipowners' Associations (ECSA) Air Emissions Working Group and Director, Head of Environment of the Norwegian Shipowners' Association, this week urged European Union (EU) Member States to "proactively engage" the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to reduce the shipping industry's CO2 reduction measures.

The comments came as part of an ECSA-organised seminar this week, which stressed that a number of different measures will need to be utilised in order to achieve CO2 reductions across the global fleet.

"We certainly aim to promote ambitious short, mid and long term global measures in line with IMO MEPC71 roadmap for the CO2 reductions from international shipping, and the Paris COP21 Agreement on climate change. We feel that the shipping industry is fully engaged in advancing the emission reduction agenda," said Sletner.

"We call for the EU Member States to proactively engage IMO's global members that IMO continues to seriously address CO2 reduction for ships and adopts an IMO CO2 strategy as soon as possible, as a global solution is what our industry indeed needs.

The seminar saw shipowners present their initiatives and hosted a debate among stakeholders, including the European Commission, maritime attachees, European Parliament representatives, and NGOs such as Transport and Environment (T&E).

"In our seminar this week, we discussed with our stakeholders and European decision-makers different measures that enable to minimise the environmental impact of the shipping sector," explained Sletner.

"In one analysis, the measures were divided in categories including the Technical and operational measures, alternative fuels and logistics related to the speed management of a vessel."

Last week, IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim, speaking at an industry conference in London, called progress in talks on how to reduce shipping's carbon footprint over the past few years "a miracle."