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The board of directors of the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), representing national shipowners’ associations from 35 nations and over 80 percent of the world merchant fleet, met in London recently, ahead of the upcoming meeting of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) in April.

On the issue of CO2 monitoring and reporting, the ICS board reiterated that it 'fully supports' the development by IMO of a global system for monitoring and reporting of ships' CO2 emissions, provided that the mechanism is simple to administer, is primarily based on fuel consumption and that the system itself will not be used for the development of a full-blown market-based measure (MBM).

Consistent with an important ICS submission to the April meeting of the IMO MEPC, the ICS board confirmed its support for the 'three phase' approach to the development of a global system proposed by the United States, and now seemingly supported in a submission to IMO by EU member states. Under the 'three phase' approach, the question of whether IMO should eventually develop a mandatory system of energy indexing for existing ships – to which ICS says it is opposed - would be left open until a mandatory CO2 emissions reporting system has been established.

Mr Morooka remarked: "Our priority is to ensure the primacy of IMO as the industry’s global regulator and the successful development of a global system will require the support of all of the world’s major flag states. It is unfortunate that the debate has been complicated by the parallel proposal from the European Commission, now being considered by the European Parliament, for a unilateral regional system of CO2 reporting that is unlikely to be compatible with whatever will be agreed at IMO."

The ICS board agreed that it would be very helpful if EU member states could defer reaching agreement on any regional EU regulation until sometime after the next meeting of the IMO MEPC, at which ICS says it is optimistic that progress will be made on a global measure.