IMO sets greenhouse gas targets for shipping.

Shipping currently contributes about 2.2% of global greenhouse gas emissions and emissions are predicted to increase between 50% and 250% by 2050 – depending on future economic and energy developments. However, shipping is excluded from the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change, so responsibility for reducing its contribution to climate change falls on the IMO.

Last Friday, 13th April, at the 72nd session of the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC), a meeting attended by 100 states, the IMO adopted an initial strategy on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from ships, setting out a vision to reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions from international shipping and phase them out, as soon as possible in this century. The initial strategy envisages a reduction in the total annual GHG emissions by at least 50% by 2050 compared to 2008, while, at the same time, pursuing efforts towards phasing them out entirely. The strategy sets a carbon intensity reduction target – the amount of emissions relative to each tonne of shipping cargo – of at least 40 per cent by 2030, rising to 70 per cent by 2050. The strategy includes a specific reference to “a pathway of CO2 emissions reduction consistent with the Paris Agreement temperature goals”.

The MEPC agreed to hold the fourth Intersessional meeting of the Working Group on Reduction of GHG emissions from ships later in 2018. This working group will be tasked with developing a programme of follow-up actions to the Initial Strategy; further considering how to progress reduction of GHG emissions from ships in order to advise the committee; and reporting to the next session of the MEPC (MEPC 73), which meets 22-26 October 2018.

 

Published by

Professor Simon Baughen

Professor Simon Baughen was appointed as Professor of Shipping Law in September 2013 (previously Reader at the University of Bristol Law School). Simon Baughen studied law at Oxford and practised in maritime law for several years before joining academia. His research interests lie mainly in the field of shipping law, but also include the law of trusts and the environmental law implications of the activities of multinational corporations in the developing world. Simon's book on Shipping Law, has run to seven editions (soon to be eight) and is already well-known to academics and students alike as by far the most learned and approachable work on the subject. Furthermore, he is now the author of the very well-established practitioner's work Summerskill on Laytime. He has an extensive list of publications to his name, including International Trade and the Protection of the Environment, and Human Rights and Corporate Wrongs - Closing the Governance Gap. He has also written and taught extensively on commercial law, trusts and environmental law. Simon is a member of the Institute of International Shipping and Trade Law, a University Research Centre within the School of Law, and he currently teaches at Swansea on the LLM in:Carriage of Goods by Sea, Land and Air; Charterparties Law and Practice; International Corporate Governance.

Leave a Reply