The crucial meeting of the Maritime Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which met last week, did not finally accept the proposal of the International Maritime Chamber (ICS) to create a fund with a budget of 5 billion. USD
The Fund would fund the necessary Research & Development actions for alternative fuels and technologies that will contribute to the carbonization of shipping.
The International Maritime Chamber said in a statement that the IMO had missed the opportunity to quickly begin the transition to zero carbon technologies, which will be vital if we want to be completely free of carbon by 2050. In the same announcement ICS speaks for “short-sighted political maneuvers” that led in practice to the “death” of the proposal.
It is recalled that the Hellenic Shipowners’ Association had also supported this proposal, the establishment of an International Maritime Research Fund.
Guy Platten, ICS Secretary-General, commented, among other things, that despite the support of many IMO member states, we were disappointed by the short-sighted political maneuvers that led in practice to “kill” the proposal.
The signal with the IMO decision is that the financial risk associated with green investments will remain high, slowing down efforts to switch to zero carbon emissions as soon as possible.
In any case, the shipping industry remains committed to finding ways to achieve clean zero carbon emissions by 2050, Guy Platten added.
Financing for research and development (R&D) will be at the top of the agenda at the Shaping the Future of Shipping Summit, to be hosted by ICS in London on June 21, he added.
Simon Bennett, ICS Deputy Secretary-General, added that “in addition to providing half a billion dollars a year to support global programs, the fund would provide $ 50 million a year to support greenhouse gas emissions reduction projects in the offshore countries. Unfortunately, it seems that this opportunity for immediate assistance to countries such as the developing countries of the small islands has also been lost.
On the positive side, there remains the possibility for the IMO to use the Fund’s proposed regulatory architecture to support a future global CO2 contribution to shipping, to close the zero-carbon price gap when it becomes available and to offer significant funds that will help accelerate the transition to net zero by 2050.
“If the contribution system we have developed can accelerate the implementation of a global coal levy for shipping, we may still be able to look back on this IMO setback as an important moment of success.”
About the proposal for the Fund
The proposal for the establishment of an International Council for Maritime Research and Development (IMRB), to accelerate zero-carbon technologies, was submitted jointly to the UN IMO by the leading trade associations of the shipping industry in 2019.
This was followed by a comprehensive regulatory proposal in 2020 from 10 governments (including the major shipping countries of Denmark, Greece, Japan and Singapore, as well as Georgia, Liberia, Malta, Nigeria, Palau and Switzerland) for mandatory contribution, to be paid by ships worldwide, US $ 2 per tonne of marine fuel consumed, to the IMO Maritime Research Fund (IMRF). The IMRF would have provided about $ 5 billion in project funding
Source: Capital
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