THE International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has been criticised by environmentalists and leftist members of the European Parliament (MEPs) for not enacting curbs on green houses gases from ships.
Greens blast IMO for not enacting new rules on greenhouse gases THE International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has been criticised by environmentalists and leftist members of the European Parliament (MEPs) for not enacting curbs on green houses gases from ships. The IMO, meeting in London, agreed to cap emissions of sulphur from ships, but on greenhouse gases agreed only to some further monitoring and a fresh round of negotiations. Potential measures to reduce greenhouse gases have been delayed to 2023, which campaigners said is too late, the Guardian reported. Sulphur will be capped at 0.5 per cent of shipping fuel content from 2020, not 2025 as some companies and countries had urged. Current levels of sulphur in maritime fuels can be as high as 3.5 per cent. Bill Hemmings, of the campaigning group Transport and Environment, welcomed the move: "The decision reduces the contribution of shipping to the world's air pollution from about five per cent to 1.5 per cent and will save millions of lives in the coming decades. Now the focus should shift towards implementing this decision." It is not clear how the sulphur cap will be implemented or policed; and no agreement was reached on capping carbon dioxide emissions. Shipping is a fast-growing source of greenhouse gases, projected to account for 17 per cent of global emissions by 2050, though the industry has long been omitted from international agreements on climate change, including the UN's Paris accord signed last year and due to come into force next month. Instead, IMO members agreed to further monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions data from international shipping, with a view to drawing up an action plan to reduce them. But that plan is not likely to be implemented before 2023.
