ICS Agrees to 'Concept' of Ship Emission Monitoring, With Conditions
The International Chamber of Shipping board "agreed that ICS will fully support the concept" of mandatory Monitoring, Reporting and Verification of emissions by ships, "provided that any measure adopted is developed and agreed at [the International Maritime Organization], and that it will be simple to administer and based primarily on fuel consumption measured by bunker delivery notes," said ICS Chairman Masamichi Morooka after the board meeting in London Feb. 5.
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But Morooka said "ICS support for the development of an MRV mechanism does not imply acceptance of MRV being used for the eventual development of any other Market Based Measure, or the mandatory application of energy indexing measures to existing ships."
ICS, an international trade association representing more than 80% of the world merchant fleet, said it's developing a detailed position on how MRV might work, but is waiting for formal submissions to be made by governments at the next meeting of the IMO Marine Environment Protection Committee in May.
ICS said it's optimistic that the U.S. will submit a paper to IMO that will address at least some ICS concerns about earlier U.S. proposals. It said it hopes the U.S. will avoid requiring expensive or impractical emission monitoring equipment on board ships.
ICS board members were pleased that it seems that the EU will give much less emphasis to developing its own Market Based Measure on a regional basis (including a mooted regional emissions trading scheme for ships) and that as an interim measure the EU instead wishes to focus on a global system of MRV, the ICS said.