A cargo ship at the Kwai Tsing Container Terminals in Hong Kong. Western countries were disappointed in the International Maritime Organization’s environmental plan, while big exporters in the developing world supported it.
PHOTO: JEROME FAVRE/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK
The world’s top maritime regulator has agreed to a plan to cut the “carbon-intensity” of ocean-going vessels, overriding objections from Western countries that the accord doesn’t commit the shipping sector to specific emission cuts.
The environmental accord struck at an International Maritime Organization meeting in London late Monday includes steps aimed at pushing shipowners to cut the carbon footprint of some 30,000 ocean-going vessels by 40% by 2030, according to a spokesman for the United Nations regulator, and cut overall emissions by half in 2050, compared to 2008 levels.
But as anticipated, the pact set no specific targets, a subject that will not be addressed till 2023.
“Some 80 countries talked and there’s a raft of different opinions on whether this was too much or too little,” said Lars Robert Pedersen, deputy secretary general of Denmark-based shipping trade body Bimco. “It’s pretty doubtful that what was agreed today will actually contribute to the overall CO2-cut goal, but at this point it was a needed compromise to get the process going.”