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The board of directors of the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), whose member national shipowners’ associations are said to represent over 80 percent of the world merchant fleet, met in London on 13th September.

At the meeting, ICS members expressed satisfaction with the adoption in June, by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), of a package of technical regulations to help the shipping industry further reduce its CO2 emissions on a global basis.

ICS members stressed that this demonstrated that IMO was eminently capable of regulating shipping’s CO2 emissions, and that with the full support of the industry IMO was ahead of the curve and well placed to supplement this with the development of market based measures for shipping.

The ICS board reiterated its preference for an environmental compensation fund, to which any contributions by ships would be primarily linked to fuel consumption, rather than an emissions trading scheme.

"Now that IMO has adopted binding regulations, that will enter into force in 2013, ICS hopes this will be sufficient to dissuade governments from pursuing detailed CO2 rules for shipping at the UNFCCC or through regional requirements, for example by the EU. Such alternative measures would only be likely to apply to a proportion of the world fleet and would therefore deliver far smaller total emission reductions than global measures agreed through IMO. Such alternative measures would also fundamentally upset the global level playing field that the shipping industry needs to carry world trade efficiently," the ICS said.

“ICS national associations will be lobbying their governments hard on these points, and in support of IMO, in advance of the next United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Durban in December.” said ICS Chairman, Spyros M Polemis.

EDDI

With respect to the adoption of the IMO Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI), which must be applied to new ships, the ICS board considered the theoretical right of flag States to issue waivers to shipowners taking delivery of new ships.

The ICS board concluded that no responsible shipowner would want to order a new ship (that was covered by the new IMO regulation) without an EEDI, since this would almost certainly impact on in its ability to trade.

Mr Polemis explained "As a signal of good faith and commitment to the uniform global implementation of the IMO agreement on CO2, ICS strongly recommends that all ships of a type for which the index has already been agreed should be delivered by shipyards with an EEDI - regardless of any flag State waiver that might be available for a limited time."

Having taken this decision in principle, ICS said it will be developing guidance to explain the implications of this recommendation to shipowners within the next few weeks.