Monitoring
Europe is also leading the way in creating new measures to tackle shipping’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Brussels is set to finalise its own regulations, creating the means to have all ships larger than 5,000 gt destined to and from European ports monitor and report annual CO2 emissions.
The MRV regulation ? it stands for monitoring reporting and verification ? will affect all ships calling at European ports from January 2018 from when they will to need to keep continual records of annual fuel use or CO2 emissions.
In itself, this is an innocuous step for shipowners as fuel-efficiency strategies are gaining ground in the industry.
Traditional noon reports, noting a ships position, the distance a vessel travelled during the preceding 24 hours and the bunkers consumed, remain commonplace.
Some companies record this data electronically, and some use monitoring mechanisms to ensure there is sufficient data to allow shore- and ship-based personnel to make voyage, route planning and ship husbandry decisions to ensure fuel consumption remains at a minimum in relation to the commercial requirements of the tonnage.
A growing number of software solution providers offer relatively cheap ways to analyse ship performance data, and some of the main machinery component makers are willing to take over vessel maintenance functions as they see the benefits to shipowners and to themselves in after-sales servicing of complex equipment.
The EU is promoting the MRV proposal as a potential global tool.
If deployed globally, it will give an accurate and up-to-date view of shipping’s CO2 emissions, and once the legislators have this data they can determine how to use mechanisms such as trading schemes or levies to curb these emissions.
This is the part where the CO2 debate gets political, uncertain and controversial.
The United Nations talks on climate change are promising to develop huge global mitigation funds around the world, helping beleaguered threatened island states, developing countries and regions to tackle and adapt to the impact of climate change.
Fundraising
Although some of these fund requirements will come from UN member states making commitments, there is the potential to create a market-based measure to raise cash through international shipping.
This Green Climate Fund is seeking to raise $100bn by 2020, and then look for regular income. The first results of the European MRV regulations will be collated during 2019 after its first year of operation. This will give an indication of the percentage of global CO2 emissions that come from international shipping.
Meanwhile, international talks at the IMO on global solutions are progressing, and will continue when the marine environmental protection committee meets in October.
To ensure shipping is not used as a cash cow, the industry must create its own solution, undertake its own climate-change research and create a development fund.
This would be its own way of doing on an international scale what the European Union has been doing so well on a regional level.
It will also show international observers that shipping is capable of putting its cash into fighting climate change, but on its own terms.
