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The European Community Shipowners' Associations (ECSA) said on Wednesday that 'one message was clear' from its seminar on carbon dioxide (CO2) reductions in the shipping industry.

After hearing the opinions of attendees at this week's event, the ECSA concluded that "in order to achieve CO2 reductions across the world merchant fleet, a combination of different measures is needed".

Tor Christian Sletner, the chairman of the ECSA's Air Emissions Working Group and Director - Head of Environment at the Norwegian Shipowners' Association, explained: "In our seminar this week, we discussed with our stakeholders and European decision makers different measures that enable to minimize the environmental impact of the shipping sector. 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."

The ECSA seminar took place ahead of the upcoming meeting of the intersessional working group on the reduction of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from ships, due to be held in October, and came less than three months after the International Maritime Organisation's (IMO) 71st meeting of the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC 71).

At the event, shipowners presented their initiatives; this was followed by a debate with stakeholders, including the European Commission, maritime attachees, European Parliament representatives and NGOs such as Transport and Environment.

"We certainly aim to promote ambitious short-, mid- and long-term global measures in line with [the] IMO MEPC 71 roadmap for 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. 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," Sletner concluded.