the Clean Shipping Coalition defines deplorable the exhortation of the IMO to the EU "to brake" on the emissions of the shipping



The decision of the general secretary of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), Kitack Lim, to send to a letter to the maximum representatives of the European Union speeding up the EU not to assume unilateral decisions in matter of emissions of the marine transport and to leave that this aspect of the shipping is ordered by the IMO ( on 10 January 2017), it has not gone at all already to the Clean Shipping Coalition (CSC), the international non-profit and not governmental organization that takes care of the environmental issues tied to the marine transport.

The president of the CSC, John Maggs, has so sent in its turn a letter to the president of the IMO in which he complains that the Clean Shipping Coalition "is surprised and disappointed for its sent letter the president of the European Parliament that critical the decision of the last month from the Ambient Commission of the European Parliament to include the emissions of the shipping in the Emissions Trading Scheme of the EU".

"The decision to include the marine transport in system EU ETS - it has found Maggs in the missive - is assumed by the European Parliament, whose members are elected directly by the European citizens and therefore they have legitimacy directed in the decisional process of the EU. As representatives of the civil society and observer near the IMO (status that the CSC has obtained in 2010, ndr), we - Maggs has explained - do not think that he is adapted that you, as general secretary of the IMO, an organism essentially which did not elect, interfere in the process internal democratic of the EU. Your actions are particularly worrisome as the measure of the EU to which you opponent represents an answer timely and balanced to the urgent problem of the increase of the emissions of the ships and are defined in order to help the EU to respect the engagements previewed from the agreement of Paris and therefore to help to prevent catastrophic climatic changes".

"In fact - it has continued the president of the CSC in the letter addressed to Lim - the decision assumed last month from the Ambient Commission includes a compromise disposition based on which the marine transport will be included in system EU ETS of the EU solo from 2023 and only if the IMO will not succeed to second define a total agreement on the emissions of the ships own schedule on gases recently agreed greenhouse. We are worried that your participation suggests that you think that the IMO could not succeed to honor the promise to agree a new total measure on gases greenhouse".

Besides to.blame the decision to exhort the institutions of the EU not to assume own initiatives in order to limit the emissions of the shipping, Maggs has criticized also what the organization by him presided considers is the inadequate profuse engagement from the International Maritime Organization in order to face this problem. "To the IMO - it has remembered - in 1997 the task is entrusted by Protocollo di Kyoto to face the topic of the gas emissions greenhouse of the shipping. In the 20 years passed from then has agreed only a measure, the Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI). As the recent review of the EEDI has demonstrated - it has observed the president of the CSC - in its current form this measure is not apt to the scope and last year the IMO has also sent back until the 2018 every consideration on the strengthening its rigor".

"The agreement of Paris - it has continued Maggs - previews that all the fields and that all the emissions are faced with urgency in order to avoid catastrophic climatic changes. The answer of the IMO to this has been to restart a job program that goes back to 2003, than now previews a single action in a span of time seven-year-old. The problem of the climatic change - Maggs has denounced - is too much urgent and we cannot afford to sit down and to wait for the single action of the IMO".

"We are worried - the critic to the exhortation turned from Lim to the EU has asserted moreover Maggs renewing - than rather than to face the problem with those Member States of the IMO and those organizations of field that hinder the progresses of the initiatives for the climate reported to the shipping, you have chosen to criticize which are answering in adapted way, timely and prorated to the pressing appeal to the action of the agreement of Paris".

"the IMO - law still in the letter of Maggs - seems to consider to enjoy a sole right in acting in this field, beyond how much time this could demand. It is the protocol of Kyoto that the agreement of Paris recognizes the urgent necessity of the advance States to assume the initiative. Assumed an unilateral or regional action from these advance States, or anyone other, is not in contrast with the agreement of Paris or the IMO. It constitutes an important rather complementary effort".

In the Maggs letter therefore it has defined "deplorable" "the participation of the IMO in the process democratic of the EU". "Now Mr. general secretary - it has concluded the president of the Clean Shipping Coalition addressing directly to Lim - we wish that it makes a budget and addresses its efforts towards those Member States of the IMO and towards that is blocking and slowing down the action to level IMO, so as to be able to more quickly reach an ambitious world-wide agreement on the gas emissions greenhouse of the shipping. On this we are able to reassure she and the IMO about the continuous support of the CSC".