Isra-Mart srl: The EU should avoid pursuing its own market measures targeting shipping says industry

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The European Union (EU) should avoid pursuing its own market measures targeting shipping and allow the United Nations' maritime agency to tackle combating greenhouse

gas emissions, the ship industry has told the EU.
Earlier this month, the UN's International Maritime Organization (IMO) agreed on energy efficiency design standards for ships to cut CO2, but developing countries will probably delay implementation by using a waiver.
While the European Commission said the move was a 'major step forward', it has threatened to pursue market-based mechanisms which include shipping in its emissions trading scheme (ETS).
In a letter sent to the bloc's climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard last week, the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), which represents over 80 per cent of the global seaborne industry, said agreement at the IMO showed the agency was 'eminently capable' of delivering a global CO2 solution for shipping and making progress on market based measures.
'It is our hope that this will be sufficient to dissuade the European Union from pursuing the development of its own CO2 regime for shipping which, as well as risking serious market distortion, could result with emissions reduction measures being taken on a regional basis only,' ICS chairman Spyros Polemis wrote.
Shipping accounts for around 3.3 per cent of the world's man-made carbon dioxide emissions.
According to an IMO study, shipping emissions could grow by 150 to 250 per cent by 2050 if regulation is not in place.
An industry source added that any inclusion of shipping in an ETS would not happen for at least five to six years.
'It is rather an empty threat because the commission has enough trouble getting aviation sorted out and shipping is completely different,' the source said.
'Ships change their port of direction regularly and the EU might have to apply the principle of continuous package. Also, ship sizes and fuel consumption differ vastly. Then, they have to sort the baselines out and fuel consumption measurements are not currently very accurate.'
'The shipping industry has an instinctive dislike of needless complexity which we believe will be the result of any system based on emissions trading,' Mr Polemis wrote in the letter.
'ICS has therefore concluded that a fuel linked compensation system will be simpler to manage, more transparent, and therefore more efficient in its own right.'
Forty-eight countries voted in favour of adopting a mandatory energy efficiency design index (EEDI) for new ships. Delegates said the regulation would likely enter into force in 2013.
A group of countries led by China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa secured a waiver on the EEDI for new ships registered in developing nations until 2019, saying they needed more time to acquire more advanced technologies.