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Transport Commissioner discussed with IMO’s Secretary General passenger ship safety and measures to reduce CO2 emissions
EU Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas met today with the Secretary General of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Mr. Koji Sekimizu in Brussels and agreed to enhance cooperation in order to promote safer and more environmentally friendly shipping. The main issues of discussion during the meeting were passenger ship safety and measures to reduce CO2 emissions from international shipping.
As Vice President Kallas stated: "Reducing shipping casualties by 50% by 2015 is an ambitious goal set by Mr Sekimizu, which I fully support. At the end of the day, this is a joint effort. Following the tragic Costa Concordia accident, the cruise industry's voluntary commitments on safety of passenger ships helped develop the IMO regulatory framework. And we have, together with the EU Member States, put damage stability firmly on the IMO agenda, based on extensive research work. We now encourage the IMO to move swiftly on this matter."
In addition, Mr Kallas welcomed the Secretary General's aim to tackle piracy and that no hostages should remain.
Regarding shipping efficiency, Vice-President Kallas stressed Commissioner Hedegaard's and his full commitment to IMO as to develop new measures to further improve the efficiency and reduce emissions.
Moreover, Mr Kallas and Mr Sekimizu also agreed that the upcoming meeting of the IMO Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) should finalize the discussions on capacity building, technological cooperation and technology transfer, take decisions to allow a move towards collecting and verifying data on shipping emissions, and finally, define a clear way forward for the development of additional efficiency measures.
Post to be found at:
http://www.neurope.eu/article/towards-safer-and-environmentally-friendly-shipping
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