---

The European Community Shipowners' Associations (ECSA) has welcomed Wednesday's approval, by EU member states, of the provisional agreement - reached a fortnight ago by the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers and the European Commission - on the reform of the emissions trading system (ETS).

Commenting on the news, Martin Dorsman, ECSA's Secretary General, said: "European shipowners have a strong interest to decarbonise the industry and we think it is the right decision that the EU will leave regulation of shipping's CO2 emissions to the International Maritime Organization."

"The IMO is currently busy drawing up its strategy for reducing CO2 emissions from the international shipping. IMO is the organisation to regulate our global industry," Dorsman added.

The IMO has certain agreed milestones in its plan of global climate strategy. In April 2018, the IMO is expected to adopt an initial strategy for comprehensive emissions reductions from ships, and in 2023 it could adopt a final strategy.

In the last IMO intersessional meeting in October, the industry proposed that the sector's total CO2 emissions should not increase above 2008 levels, thus establishing 2008 as the year of peak emissions from shipping, and that the IMO should agree upon reduction percentages per tonne-kilometre as well as upon a reduction percentage by which the total emissions from the sector should be reduced by 2050.