CO2 emission reduction measures must be global: ECSA

The European Community Shipowners’ Associations (ECSA) has called for global measures to reduce CO2 emissions that apply equally to all ships.

ECSA applauded the European Commission’s decision to exclude shipping from the current European Emissions Trading System.

“We believe that shipping, together with all other industry sectors, must be part of the solution to limit the increase in global temperature, as we clearly are a global contributor to carbon emissions,” ECSA President Niels Smedegaard, said addressing a symposium on decarbonisation of shipping held in Antwerp.

“The overall goal however must be a global agreement for maritime emissions, which the International Maritime Organisation is moving towards.

“Our focus should now be on ensuring the proper implementation of the MRV Regulation and make certain that the regulation is aligned with the IMO data collection system which will be formalised in October this year,” Smedegaard said. “This will ensure that European shipping will be covered by a single system, in an efficient manner without double work”.

“The European Commission has not included shipping in its current review of the European Emissions Trading System. We believe this correctly reflects the reality that shipping is a global business and regional measures would have a directly distorting impact on European operators.

“A regional scheme would lead to carbon leakage as ships would start to avoid calling at EU ports. It would also gravely hurt the European short sea shipping sector, which would again be faced with an ‘EU only’ system,” he concluded.