By Craig Eason, Editorial Director, Fathom.World
THE level playing field: A term that sounds as innocent as a Sunday game of football in the park, but has become as mired in political tension as an innuendo is in double-entendres.
I often hear the term level-playing field when shipowner representatives talk about their demands in places like the International Maritime Organisation and other places where regulations are often discussed and agreed.
It may be strange to hear about demands for a level playing field in an industry known to be harshly commercial and competitive. Surely any home advantage would be beneficial.
While the shipowner lobby groups will call for level playing fields, the environmental green lobbyists are more sceptical. For them it is a smoke screen.
So what is the much maligned level playing field that shipowners and environmental groups battle over. It is unfortunately down to semantics.In short it means “a situation in which everyone has a fair and equal chance of succeeding”
What the green lobby groups want however is that the worst polluters don’t succeed, and that those that take affirmative action do.
I asked the Danish Shipowners Association what its definition is:
“The level-playing-field is imperative to the industry. In the commercial sense: may the best company win! But when it comes to regulation, level-playing-field is only ensured by global regulation which applies to all – regardless of flag. And last, but not least: global, effective enforcement by the authorities”.
That sounds straightforward until one considers some of the nuances, such as regulation often being seen as a minimum common standard, and that there are international rules that are regional: The emission control areas for example.
While Kathy Metcalf at the US Chamber of Shipping, which represents shipowners in the US, agrees that a level playing field should be globally applicable to maritime, she told me she recognises the argument that agreements at the IMO by member states may be a minimum consensus.
This is generally one of the accepted outcomes of diplomatic horsetrading. No one is perfectly happy, but also no one really upset
This minimum “floor” perspective is, according to Metcalf, a justification for a number of national requirements that go above and beyond the IMO requirements ( hence the US ballast water type approval program and the potential EU ETS).
So there is a level, minimum regulation, with countries able, if they choose, to do more stringent things. Ship owners and operators clearly do not want this. Let’s not forget, it is the IMO member states and the EU triumvirate of Council, Commission and Parliament that make the rules, not the lobby groups.
What they, the shipowner groups, want, argues T&E, a vocal European lobby group supporting stronger rules on shipping’s greenhouse gases, is the minimum level playing field and often use the term, without reference to ‘minimum’ to deflect from this.
T&E and other lobby groups believe there is a very good chance that the IMO roadmap will lead to weak CO2 regulations, in short, a minimum lowest level playing field, and they want stronger more affirmative action. Hence their support for the developing EU plans to implement something regional.
Faig Abbasov, Shipping and aviation officer at Transport and Environment argues that the idea of a European shipping ETS or fund, is no different from the application of the regional emission control areas that target sulphur and nitrous oxide emissions from shipping.
“Both shipping ETS and ECA affect all ships sailing to/from Europe. In this sense, ECAs are regional measure too; it was initiated and agreed by the coastal countries in the EU/USA and taken to the IMO for the blessing of the Pope and his cardinals. Why are ECAs permissible and the EU GHG measure not?”
The main accusation from T& E is that is that the “level playing field/global” statement distracts from the benefits of “first mover/regional” action.
“Because CO2 regulation of ships forces them to account for their environmental costs, which in return leads to operational efficiency, and less CO2 equals less fuel consumption and thus less transport costs. So a well-designed EU measure would benefit shipping companies sailing to Europe,” he argues.
That may be true, especially in a competitive industry like shipping where every marginal percentage makes a difference. Fuel costs will likely drive the industry to change as much as any global rules reliant on finding tricky diplomatic consensus.
Fathom.World
The f-word blog aims to offer a personal opinion, from the Fathom Editorial team, of events and trends in the developing transformation of the shipping industry.
