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Failure to secure some form of deal to help make new ships more carbon efficient could see the International Maritime Organization (IMO) lose its status as the industry's guiding body, according to a senior executive at one of the world's largest shipping companies.
Jacob Sterling, head of climate and environment at Maersk, told BusinessGreen the UN body has to come away from a meeting in July with agreement on preliminary steps towards cutting shipping's carbon emissions or risk seeing its negotiating role supplanted by the UN's climate change secretariat, the UNFCCC.
"In July [the IMO] is discussing and trying to agree a global efficiency standard for new ships – it's a first step, it's not radical or highly ambitious," he said. "But it is make or break for the IMO if it wants to play a role in the future of shipping."
The IMO has overseen the slow progress of negotiations designed to agree how to reduce emissions from the sector, which account for about four per cent of global emissions and are predicted to increase exponentially as global trade expands.
However, the body denied that the outcome of July talks, known as MEPC 62, would decide its future.
"The Kyoto Protocol says that countries should work through the IMO to address shipping emissions and I don't see that changing," an IMO spokeswomen told BusinessGreen. "We hope to get some sort of agreement in July, but until we have that meeting its impossible to speculate. If nothing is agreed, other organizations may decide to take specific action, but we cannot comment on what they decide to do."
Complete Story at:
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2028570/maersk-global-emissions-deal-sink-swim-imo
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