Emerging economies hold up IMO discussions

2575, 01/07/08

Market-based instruments to curb greenhouse gas emissions from shipping should not be indiscriminately applied to ships from developed and developing countries, several major emerging economies said at an International maritime organisation (IMO) meeting in Oslo last week.

A coalition led by China and India argued forcefully that the Kyoto protocol's concept of "common but differentiated responsibilities" should apply to efforts to reduce emissions from international shipping.  The IMO is expected to adopt a binding instrument to cut these emissions in 2009 (EED 07/03/08 http://www.endseuropedaily.com/articles/index.cfm?action=article&ref=25001).

IMO secretary general Efthimios Mitropoulos anticipated this argument in his opening speech and came out strongly against it: "If reductions in CO2 emissions from ships are to benefit the environment as a whole, they must apply globally to all ships in the world fleet, regardless of their flag."

"There is no precedence in any of the nearly fifty IMO treaty instruments currently in existence where measures are applied selectively to ships according to their flag," Mr Mitropoulos added.

Konrad Putz from Norwegian NGO Bellona said: "Discrimination between flags would lead to swift re-flagging of ships and no or very little impact on emissions."

The disagreement over how to distribute emission reduction responsibility stalled discussions on a global bunker fuel levy and emission trading scheme to curb international shipping emissions. The IMO will resume talks at the next meeting of its marine environment protection committee in October.  

Progress was made in other areas.  Delegates agreed the principles of a mandatory minimum fuel efficiency standard for new ships. Discussions on its starting level and future tightening were left till October.  Further guidelines on best practice to improve energy efficiency were also developed.

But delegates rejected mandatory reporting of emissions by ships as "too bureaucratic".  Instead, a majority supports top-down calculations of shipping emissions using for example fuel consumption data.

Follow-up: IMO http://www.imo.org/, tel: +44 20 7735 7611, plus press release

http://www.imo.org/Newsroom/mainframe.asp?topic_id=1709&doc_id=9753,

Mitropoulos's opening speech http://www.endseuropedaily.com/docs/80701a.doc, background briefing

http://www.imo.org/includes/blastDataOnly.asp/data_id%3D22072/June2008preOslosummary.pdf

and Intertanko report of the meeting http://www.intertanko.com/templates/Page.aspx?id=44393.

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