In advance of next week’s critical meeting of the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC 70) at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in London, the global shipping industry has called on IMO Member States to give serious consideration to a joint industry submission regarding the need for further progress on addressing the sector’s CO2 emissions.
The joint industry submission, made by BIMCO, International Chamber of Shipping, INTERCARGO, INTERTANKO and World Shipping Council, represents a unified response from the shipping industry to the Paris Agreement on climate change, which entered into force on 5 October.
The joint industry submission calls on IMO Member States to finalise the adoption of a global CO2 data collection system for international shipping, as a precursor to the consideration of possible next steps to address the sector’s CO2 emissions.
Such steps could then build on the existing IMO mandatory agreement on technical and operational measures to reduce shipping’s CO2, which entered into force worldwide in 2013 – the first global agreement of its kind to be established outside of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
In particular, the industry associations will be requesting MEPC 70 to agree to develop a roadmap which would include a timeline for the completion of this work; determining a ‘fair share contribution’ towards reducing the world’s total CO2 emissions, of which international shipping is currently responsible for about 2.2%.