Shipping is committed to green and sustainable growth, confirms the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS).
Despite President Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement, ICS believes the shipping industry will remain strongly committed to reducing its CO2 emissions.
ICS has verified that the shipping industry is in full support of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal to protect the ocean (SDG 14) and will speak at the United Nations Ocean Conference on Tuesday June 6 on shipping’s commitment to the goal.
It has a number of aspirational objectives that relate to the industry’s role in CO2 reduction and believes that the IMO should adopt these on behalf of the international shipping sector. In a statement released it says that the IMO should agree to keep CO2emissions from the shipping sector below 2008 levels and cut annual CO2 emissions by 2050, by a percentage agreed by the IMO.
This is additional to the existing industry commitment to cut CO2 emissions per tonne of cargo carried one kilometre by 50% by 2050, compared to 2008.
ICS’s Director of Policy, Simon Bennett, will explain these views and shipping’s commitment to the United Nations SDGs on Tuesday June 6 at the UN Ocean Conference held in New York.
He will emphasize shipping’s commitment to adopting global regulations set by the IMO on CO2 and sulphur emissions. He says:
“Shipping, because of its great size, is currently responsible for about 2.2% of annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions. According to IMO, shipping has reduced its total CO2 emissions by more than 13% between 2008 and 2012, despite increased maritime trade, but there is a perception that shipping, whose emissions cannot be attributed to individual nations, may have somehow ‘escaped’ the Paris Agreement.”
The ICS believes that the shipping industry will only be able to invest in social and environmental improvements and develop sustainably if it is commercially viable and economically sustainable itself.
Click here to read more about ICS’s commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals
Fathom-News
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