Midway through this week’s crucial Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) gathering and there is now a very real risk of member states of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) failing to deliver clear goals and economic measures to decarbonise shipping.
MEPC80 was expected to bring the industry revised green targets for 2030 and 2050 as well as providing economic measures to smooth this quickened green transition.
Countries led by China, Brazil and Saudi Arabia have been clouding this outcome all week, making the case that many of the policies under discussion will be too economically punishing.
With talks set to come to a close on Friday evening the chances of an agreement to keep shipping in line with the 1.5 Celsius stipulations of the Paris Agreement are looking increasingly remote.
Addressing delegates on behalf of the NGO Clean Shipping Coalition, Shaama Sandooyea a marine biologist and climate activist from Mauritius, said: “There are only two possible outcomes from these negotiations: either member states follow the science and set a 1.5C compatible emissions pathway or you fail to do your job here. By the way, for a 66% chance of staying below 1.5C that’s a 50% cut by 2030. Anything less is not good enough. The world is watching and right now, you are on the wrong side of history.”
Also speaking yesterday was Madadh MacLaine from the Zero Emissions Ship Technology Association (ZESTAs) who said: “Capital is ready to flow into this sector the moment that IMO gives a clear indication that their investments will be de-risked by regulation. Without this 1.5 aligned framework, shipping’s transition will lose critical time and time we cannot afford to lose. Weak signals and wrong incentives will create extra costs and dead-end pathways leading to stranded assets.”
The omens for a watered-down result from MEPC80 had been clear to see from the drafting from last week’s Intersessional Working Group on Reduction of GHG Emissions from Ships (ISWG-GHG 15).
If the IMO fails to deliver, regional regulation, led by the European Union, will splinter how shipping’s green governance is handled.
Security at the United Nations body is expected to be tightened following a protest on Monday evening by Extinction Rebellion who managed to get into the building and to that evening’s cocktail reception, the latest in a series of environmental protests which have been grabbing headlines across the UK this summer.
A deafening lack of voices here… from the Maritime Industry itself… The “Initial IMO GHG Strategy”, though renewed yearly, remains “initial”. The progress on developing draft lifecycle GHG and carbon intensity guidelines for marine fuels and assessment of impacts of GHG measures under the IMO working group is circumscribed by deregulation by issuing “guidelines” which focus only on Fuels and Technology, curbed by inacting and lost in illusory targets bound to fail for missing the Maritime Industry realities which are:
1. The ability to renew, convert, or refit the Main Maritime global Fleet sustaining the seaborne Trade consisting of ca 45,000 ships (Tankers, Bulk Carriers, Gas Carriers, Container ships) in less than 20 years from now, if the 1.5 deg. C target was realistic.
2. The prerequisite for the above (1) is the Financial Security that can only be based on: (a) Alternative Energy security (b) Regulation and (c) Shipbuilding Industry capacity which delimits the lead time of all fleet renewal works and (d) the condition of an undisturbed flow of the global seaborne Trade throughout the alternative energy and the fleet renewal transitions.
Objectively, the current IMO Groups look like illusionists working on chimerical alchemies… that nobody wants to try…