the IMO exhorts the EU not to assume an unilateral decision on the emissions of the shipping



The general secretary of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), Kitack Lim, has sent a letter to the president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, to the president of the EU commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, and to the European Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, in which he expresses worry for the proposal to include the marine transport in the European system of exchange of emissions (EU ETS) ( on 15 December 2016), inclusion that must have effect from 2023 if within the 2021 IMO it will not adopt an ulterior total system in order to reduce the gas emissions greenhouse of the marine transport and that - has explained - it could place to risk the efforts in existence in order to limit the produced gas emissions greenhouse from the marine transport on a global basis.

"I am worried - it has specified Lim - because a definitive decision to extend EU ETS to the emissions produced from the shipping would be not only premature, but would have also a serious impact on the job which got ahead from the IMO in order to reduce the gas emissions greenhouse from international the marine transport. The inclusion of the emissions from the ships in EU ETS risks to undermine in meaningful way the efforts to total level".

Lim has remembered that the IMO, which agency of the United Nations charged to make safe the marine transport and to prevent the marine and atmospheric pollution producing by the ships, has in existence initiatives in order to limit the produced gas emissions greenhouse from the shipping that they have reached to an advanced stage and that in the 2011 agency has become the first international organism to already adopt obligatory measures of energy efficiency for an entire field with a series of technical and operating requirement for the ships of new construction and those in exercise that have taken effect in 2013. Moreover last October the IMO has adopted a system of collection of data on the fuel oil consumption of the ships that will be returned obligatory and will be applied to total level and has remembered that this will be first of an approach in three phases that will lead to a decision informed on the necessity to introduce ulterior measures in order to improve energy efficiency and to limit the gas emission greenhouse of international the marine transport. The IMO - Lim has emphasized - has approved of also a schedule for the development of a total strategy on the reduction of the produced gas emissions greenhouse from the ships that the adoption of an initial strategy in 2018 previews.

In the letter the general secretary of the IMO has evidenced as this demonstrates not only to the leadership and the Maritime role of the International Organization as total organism for the definition and the application of norms for international the marine transport, but moreover restates that the IMO is the only appropriate organ in order to get ahead this job and in order to obtain necessary the political cooperation of all the governments represented near the IMO, between which the Member States of the European Union. "Such political cooperation - it has emphasized Lim - is important in order to guarantee that all the nations act together so that nobody is left behind".

Lim has specified that an unilateral or regional action, that is in conflict or that undermines the initiatives that carefully are examined and deliberate by the international community near the IMO, places to risk the confidence world-wise that near the IMO can be developed coherent and homogenous a system of rules.

Lim has remembered moreover that the agreement of Paris of 2015 on the climate does not make some reference to the emissions of international the marine transport because of the total nature of the field and the difficulty to attribute the emissions of a ship to a single State, and has evidenced as however the job on the control of the gas emissions greenhouse which got ahead from the IMO demonstrates that an addressed action is on hard towards the objective of an absolutely total solution for international the marine transport that will be reached through the cooperation between all its Member States, included those of the EU.

Lim has concluded finding as the decision of the Council of the IMO that is assumed at the beginning last month and that it has authorized two ulterior reunions of an appropriate working group of Marine Environment Protection Committee on the reduction of the produced gas emissions greenhouse from the ships that will hold in the course of 2017, with the first in program on 26-30 June, will allow ulterior progresses and rimarchi the importance and the urgency that the IMO attributes to this problem.