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The IMO's Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) Meeting closed on Friday with delegates agreeing that market-based measures to help cut emissions will be assessed over the coming months as part of an urgent workplan.

Amongst the measures to be considered in the run up to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCCC) meeting in Copenhagen in December will be the so-called International Compensation Fund (ICF), to be financed by a levy on marine bunkers and an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

During the week-long meeting, the MEPC also drew up a series of interim guidelines to improve the energy efficiency of ships. These included an energy-efficiency design index for newly-built vessels, the voluntary verification of the design index for the development of a ship energy-efficiency management plan and the use of an energy-efficiency design indicator.

Despite the agreement to implement new energy efficiency measures, the IMO Committee has already drawn criticism from environmental groups.

Commenting on this week's meeting, WWF-UK said "The meeting saw the conclusion of several years’ work on developing energy efficiency indices for the design of new vessels and the operation of existing ones, which could be used as very effective tools to make shipping more energy efficient. However, so far the IMO only intends to use these indices in voluntary trials. Any discussion this week of whether to make the measures mandatory was ruled out even before the meeting started.

"This raises serious questions as to whether the Copenhagen process should reconfirm the IMO’s responsibility for shipping-related climate issues, and the organisation’s continued anchor-dragging also highlights the need for the EU to progress its own work on a regional European shipping scheme, similar to its policy on aviation," WWF-Uk added.

"The IMO has failed to deliver the results required for Copenhagen. The majority has succumbed to the blocking tactics of a small minority. They clearly have not seized the urgency of the issue; UNFCCC now needs to act", said Bill Hemmings of T&E.

"The IMO has reached the point it should have attained 5 to 10 years ago, and continuing dissent suggests pitfalls remain that could delay the process even further" said John Maggs of Seas At Risk.

"The energy efficiency measures are a welcome development, but on their own they will not achieve the Greenhouse gas emission reductions needed. And they won’t achieve anything at all, unless they are mandatory, with an increased reduction of permitted emissions over time, so that the industry is forced to build and sail ever-cleaner ships," said Pete Lockley, Head of Transport Policy at WWF-UK.

"The IMO GHG Study 2009 makes it clear that the industry could do its part to reduce emissions by at least 20% by 2020, without expense, so there is no reason for IMO decisions to be delayed another three years or more" added Jackie Savitz of Oceana.

"The IMO’s reluctance to engage critical issues continues a disturbing trend over the 12 year period in which the organisation has dealt with this charge" said John Kaltenstein, Clean Vessels programme manager of Friends of the Earth US.