MEPC80: IMO Sets Shipping on Course for Net-Zero GHG Emissions 'By or Around 2050'

• Revised strategy adopted at MEPC 80 on Friday morning
• Total GHG emissions from shipping to reach net zero 'by or around 2050'
• 'Indicative checkpoints' envisage at least 20% cut by 2030, 70% by 2040
• Uptake of zero- or near-zero-GHG emission fuels, technologies and energy sources to reach at least 5% by 2030
• No mid-term measures such as GHG levy until at least 2027

The revised strategy was adopted at the 80th meeting of the UN body's Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC 80) in London on Friday morning. Image Credit: IMO

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has adopted a revised strategy seeking to cut the shipping industry's 1 billion mt/year of GHG emissions to net zero by around 2050.

The revised strategy was adopted at the 80th meeting of the UN body's Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC 80) in London on Friday morning.

The strategy sets a level of ambition of GHG emissions from shipping peaking as soon as possible and reaching net-zero 'by or around 2050, taking into account different national circumstances'.

The document also sets 'indicative checkpoints' of total shipping GHG emissions being reduced by at least 20%, striving for 30%, from 2008's levels by 2030, and by at least 70%, striving for 80%, by 2040.

The strategy sets an additional ambition for uptake of zero- or near-zero-GHG emission technologies, fuels or energy sources to reach at least 5%, striving for 10%, of total energy demand from international shipping by 2030.

The IMO's initial GHG strategy, set in 2018, envisaged a cut of least 40% in carbon emissions per transport work from 2008's levels by 2030, and a cut of at least 50% in the shipping industry's total GHG emissions by 2050. The first of these targets, on carbon intensity, remains unchanged in the revised strategy.

Mid-Term Measures

The organisation has set itself the deadline of 2025 to agree a basket of mid-term measures to support the GHG strategy. This should include both a goal-based marine fuel standard regulating a phased reduction in the GHG intensity of marine fuels, and a GHG emissions pricing mechanism for shipping.

These measures will take into account the full well-to-wake GHG emissions of marine fuels.

A comprehensive impact assessment of each of the mid-term measures being considered will be carried out from this summer, preparing an interim report by MEPC 81 in the spring of next year and a final report by MEPC 82 in the autumn of next year.

The measures chosen are envisaged to be approved at MEPC 83 before being adopted at an extraordinary one- or two-day meeting of the MEPC in the autumn of 2025.

The earliest point at which these measures could then come into force would be in 2027, 16 months after their adoption.

Comments

"Coming to agreement on the indicative checkpoints and other aspects of the strategy was not an easy task," a delegate from Fiji said a the meeting on Friday.

"The difficult task of implementing the strategy starts now."

"We are very disappointed that we ended up with a strategy that falls short of what was needed," a delegate from Tuvalu said.

"But we needed to compromise.

"This is about all of us having to compromise."

"My delegation has an objection to the idea of a universal levy," a delegate from Argentina said.

"Net importers of food would see the price they pay for food increasing because of the increased cost of freight."

Reaction

Reaction to the revised strategy outside the IMO is likely to be limited in its enthusiasm.

Some will welcome Friday's deal as the first concrete step towards full decarbonisation of the shipping industry, but a wider share of opinion is likely to see it as insufficiently ambitious.

Environmental groups have already argued the deal is not aligned with the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

The line on 'taking into account different national circumstances' linked to the 2050 target leaves significant room for developing countries to move at a slower pace, and the 'by or around 2050' goal remains vague. 

The determination that a GHG levy cannot come into effect before 2027 is likely to mean that individual countries and regional bodies decide to start charging shipping for its GHG emissions at a local level before that point, a fragmentation of global maritime regulation that the IMO has previously sought to avoid.

The EU has already decided to start including shipping in its emissions trading system from next year, and the UK plans to apply emissions trading to domestic shipping from 2026. A significant question now is whether the US and China will seek to take a similar approach.