In a month, the IMO’s climate committee will be at it again: trying to agree on regulation limiting shipping’s carbon emissions. Apparently, the task has not gotten easier. Two of the five main topics on the agenda may, however, be agreed upon.
It hasn’t been easy for the UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) to agree upon climate regulation aiming to address the problem with the shipping industry’s carbon emissions.
The only real initiatives coming out of recent years’ meetings in the organization’s climate committee are Carbon Intensity Indicators (CII) and the Energy Efficiency Existing Ships Index (EEXI) – indices for, respectively, operation and design of existing ships which global shipping has to adhere to after the turn of the year. However, skepticism prevails regarding the initiatives, even among advocates. At least as long as they remain off the record.
The two potential game changers, namely a global tax on fossil fuels and a research fund with USD 5bn in capital, are – as is often the case with the difficult topics in the IMO – sent on to the next meeting in the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC), which takes place every seventh month.
Therefore, the member countries in the MEPC will meet up again in mid-June to follow up on two years of very difficult meetings, which have already been going on online with strong limits on speaking time and no possibility of having corridor meetings.
Conflict changes the political climate
And just as the world – and probably the MEPC as well – thought brighter days were ahead as Covid-19 restrictions were rolled back, at least in Western countries, the war in Ukraine broke out.
Not that it has any immediate connection to the work in the climate committee, but Russia’s invasion has started a chain reaction, in which Western politicians, companies and interests unambiguously oppose the Moscow regime, and in which the picture of who is condemning the invasion and who is not is only getting clearer.
”It is not certain that it will mean anything, but it is absolutely certain that it won’t make the process any easier,” says a participant in the meetings.
It is absolutely certain that it won’t make the process any easier
IMO source on the Ukraine war
Traditionally, the EU and the US have, together with countries like Norway and Japan as well as some of the island states in the Pacific Ocean, stood as the ambitious nations of the world when it comes to shipping’s decarbonization, while countries such as Russia, Saudi Arabia and India have held back.
The resistance from these countries has made it impossible to find a common line, which the chairman of the meetings guides after. Because in that regard, the decision process in the MEPC is its own. It’s not about a simple majority and not about consensus either. Most of all, it’s about the chairman’s sense of support for a proposition.
CO2 discussion difficult for IMO
A tax on fossil fuels and – to a certain degree – the research fund are already very political topics and, according to observers WPO has spoken to, political to an extent that the MEPC in fact cannot contain the discussion. This, there are a number of reasons for.
First of all, it would be unprecedented to give a UN body the mandate to collect taxes or in any case add a tax to a certain action, namely the use of fossil fuels or the smoke they emit.
Second of all, who is to administer the many billions that a tax would bring in? Right now, the MEPC works with a model in which an extra USD 100 per tonne fossil fuel has to be paid.
And finally, what will the money be used for?
As such, the discussion on the new tax has also turned into a debate on distribution policy between the countries, or at least on the lines, as the MEPC has been put in the world to discuss climate solutions for the maritime industry, not least from a technical perspective.
Research fund draws out
”The IMO is under pressure. The ambitious part of the industry has almost given up and started to think in alternative solutions so that the IMO won’t become an obstacle. The member countries really have to be careful if they want to maintain the organization as a global regulator of shipping. That being said, we also see that the discussions move at a higher pace than just a few years ago,” says another source.
The IMO is under pressure
Experienced IMO source
Agreeing on a research fund is also dragging out, among other reasons due to disagreement on who is to administer the many funds and how they are supposed to be spent.
According to sources WPO has spoken to, optimism is stronger regarding two other topics expected to become part of the agenda. This counts the so-called life-cycle approach to CO2 emissions, meaning emissions are supposed to be categorized according to the amount they have polluted since they were began to when they no longer exist. Or in other words, that green energy such as methanol only counts as thoroughly green if the production has been so, too.
Furthermore, the MEPC has to initiate the discussion of a follow-up to the original CO2 strategy passed by the IMO in 2018, which made it a target for shipping to halve its carbon emissions by 2050. And which was deemed unambitious back then already.
Finally, the guidelines for CII and EEXI will need to be fine-tuned, however, this should only be a matter of form.
