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IMO urged to set up 'clear ambitious' ship emission rules

LARGE shipping firms and groups dominated by big shipping companies are calling on the UN's International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to set up stringent ship emission rules to fight alleged global warming.

Critics see fervent corporate environmentalism as a way to increase rocketing regulatory compliance costs to force smaller players out of business.

This call comes ahead of this month's meeting of its Marine Environmental Protection Committee (MEPC) in London and is backed by the Danish Shipowners' Association, Royal Belgian Shipowners' Association, Maersk, Scandlines, Lauritzen, Unifeeder, and 45 other businesses.

A letter signed by 51 organisations from within international shipping, and sent to 171 heads of state of the member countries of the IMO, has asked help in securing increased environmental legislation for the industry, according to a news release from PR firm, Blue Communications.

There are no plans for this type of legislation currently on the table, and consideration of a global emissions cap for shipping was pushed aside as recently as 2015.

The latest call made to the IMO to develop a greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions-reduction target failed to gain approval.

The letter states that it is time for the world to recognise the important role the global shipping industry must play in holding global temperatures "well below two degrees Celsius?

It calls on the IMO to "match the ambition of pace of UNFCCC [the organisation responsible for COP 21]" establish "shipping's fair share of the global responsibility to address climate change" and take "ambitious actions that help drive investment in low-carbon solutions".

"Our members, shippers, and cargo owners that use sea freight to support their global businesses are under increased pressure to manage and report on their carbon intensity, including along their supply chains" said Chris Welsh, secretary general of the Global Shippers Forum, a body that tends to represent regulators' interests rather than shippers it purports to represent.

"To achieve this, it is essential that effective measurement methods are in place, that shipowners have clear incentives to provide cleaner vessels, and that the industry has a clear goal on emissions. We have joined this letter to call on the IMO to recognise that fact, and move towards unambiguous action."

Said Maersk climate change advisor John Kornerup Bang: "We will continue working to reduce CO2 emissions in the years to come, striving to reach our 60 per cent relative reduction by 2020. But we are reaching the point where it will be more and more challenging to drive significant CO2 reductions on our own.