SHIPPING groups are welcoming a letter sent by the IMO secretary-general to European leaders which criticised a recent decision by the Parliament’s Environment Committee to try and bring shipping into the region’s emission trading scheme.
Both Brussels and the International Maritime Organization have developed schemes calling on shipowners to begin recording and then reporting annual vessel CO2 emissions. Neither is yet in play and as they are slightly different meanings they will run concurrently for a few years adding administrative burdens to shipowners.
The likelihood is that if the shipping ETS proposal gets the go ahead it will utilise the European shipping emissions data collection system, known as the MRV (for monitoring reporting and verification of CO2 emissions).
While the EU regulation directly references an ambition to align with a suitable system by the IMO to create further industry reduction measures, the Parliament proposal to incorporate shipping into the European ETS raises questions over this goal.
The proposal came from a December meeting of the European Parliament’s Environment Committee which has been discussing an overarching review of the regional trading scheme as Brussel’s tries to raise its game and meet the objectives promised through its commitment to the Paris Agreement.
In a letter to European officials IMO secretary-general Kitack Lim said that including shipping in the ETS could jeopardise efforts to reduce shipping’s greenhouse gas emissions on a global level.
The public display of concern from the IMO secretary-general over the EU ETS plans is certainly unusual but has been roundly welcomed by shipping groups who have been widely critical of the European Parliament’s proposal.
A the time of the Parliamentary decision in December the European Community Shipowners’ Association and the International Chamber of Shipping condemned the plan, and following the IMO secretary’s remarks Intercargo also came out in defence of work being pushed through the IMO.
Environmental lobby groups have however other thoughts. Following the announcement by the IMO that the secretary-general had sent the letter of criticism to Brussels, The Clean Shipping Coalition suggested that in doing so Mr Lim has himself joined the “laggards” that are slowing the process down.
They point to the fact that the European Parliament’s agreement in December was to include shipping into the ETS, but only from 2023 should the IMO fail to deliver a new global deal, which is what the IMO roadmap is supposed to deliver. The proposal includes creating a Maritime Climate Fund.
This IMO roadmap has a two-staged approach, with an initial strategy to be decided in 2018, and a final plan to be adopted in 2023, taking into account emission data that will start to be collected from the global reporting system as of 2019.
In its own letter to the IMO secretary-general the lobby groups suggest that Mr Lim has no business interfering in European politics, and that in the 20 years since the Kyoto Agreement the IMO has in fact delivered very little.
This accusation may be a little far flung, as the IMO currently has the only industry wide mandatory rules in place in the shape of the 2011 agreed energy efficiency design index and the much weaker ship energy efficiency management plan and the soon to be mandatory vessel reporting scheme.
However, there are other issues. An attempt by Brussels to bring international aviation into the ETS backfired spectacularly in 2012 when countries, including China and the US protested, leading to only regional flights and airlines having to participate. The compromise was that international flights would only be included should ICAO (the international body covering aviation the same way IMO covers maritime issues) could not find a global deal. It agreed its own roadmap last year.
The European Parliament’s environment committee decision will still need to be confirmed in a plenary vote of the Parliament early this year, and then negotiations need to continue with the Commission and individual member states, some of whom are supportive of the IMO process.
The UK
Another thought being discussed in some shipping circles is how the European plans for a regional monitoring verification and reporting scheme will develop should the UK enact Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and withdraw from the Union.
The MRV reporting scheme calls on ships to report fuel and cargo work for all voyages to, from and between European ports. Should large ports like Southampton, Liverpool and Felixstowe be outside this definition then large container ships and other vessels may opt to call at a UK destination before moving onto an EU member port, thus removing the need to report cargo work for an Asia to Europe or transatlantic voyage that calls at the UK first.
However with Norway and Iceland set to be part of the system the UK may do so too, but it could all depend on the, as yet unknown, scope of the UK withdrawal from Europe.
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