Shipping carbon emissions won’t be cut shortly

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At a key international meeting last week, the United Nations’ International Maritime Organisation (IMO) failed to approve compulsory plans to reduce rising emissions from global shipping. Only voluntary reducing schemes were agreed, which left environmental groups unsatisfied.

Along with aviation, shipping is actually the only industrial sectors not regulated under the Kyoto Protocol. IMO was commissioned to find a solution for the problem of shipping, but little progress has been made so far.

Already accounting for nearly 3% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, IMO estimates that shipping emissions could increase by 150-250% by the year 2050.

But last week again a resolution was delayed, also about the possibility to raise the cost of ships’ fuel and use the money to help poor nations tackle climate change.

Delegates from around 90 Countries only approved non-compulsory technical and operational measures to reduce greenhouse emissions from ships by improving the efficiency of ships’ designs and of shipping operations. The measures will be trialled until March 2010, when they will be addressed again by the IMO’s marine environment protection committee.

However, environmental groups were not satisfied. Peter Lockley, head of transport policy at environmental group WWF UK, said the measures should have been mandatory with set targets.

Shipping industry officials have highlighted some kind of market-based mechanism is needed, providing incentives for the industry to invest in more fuel-efficient technologies.

IMO Secretary-General Efthimios Mitropoulos told delegates they should avoid the temptation to seek “overly ambitious results we cannot deliver”. The session of the IMO’s marine environment protection committee discussed for the first time the issue of market-based measures and agreed on a work plan. It “could be in a position” to report progress made on the issue in 2011.