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The Second Intersessional Meeting of the International Maritime Organization's (IMO) Working Group on Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) from Ships is being held this week (9 to 13 March, 2009) at the headquarters of the IMO in London.

More than 200 delegates, comprising experts from all over the world, are registered for attendance.

The week-long session is tasked with further developing and finalizing the Energy Efficiency Design Index for new ships and the revised interim guidelines on the Energy Efficiency Operational Index.

The working group will also consider the introduction of a management tool for all ships, guidance on best practices and other voluntary operational measures, as well as discuss the possible impacts of the measures envisaged on the shipping sector.

The group will submit a report of its discussions to the 59th session of IMO's Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC), which will meet from 13 to 17 July 2009. MEPC 59 is also expected to further discuss market-based measures, following consideration of the issue at MEPC 58 in October last year.

Although, to date, no mandatory GHG instrument for international shipping has been adopted, IMO has given extensive consideration to the matter, with progress being made in 2008 at the first GHG Working Group intersessional meeting (in June 2008) and at MEPC 58.

MEPC 59 will report on the measures agreed to reduce GHG from ships to the conference that the United Nations will convene in Copenhagen in December 2009, which is set to agree on a successor instrument to the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).