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Scientists, lawmakers and industry officials and representatives from more than 50 ports in 35 countries attended a conference in Rotterdam last week aimed to reduce greenhouse emissions from shipping and to sign the 'World Ports Climate Declaration'.
However, disagreement on just how much the shipping industry is contributing to the total tally of global greenhouse gas meant that a 'baseline' was difficult to establish. Indeed the figure varied from 1.4 per cent to 4.5 per cent.
Yet despite disagreement on which percentages to apply to shipping, there is no doubt that the time is long overdue for shipping to get its environmental act in order.
While emissions from ships are regulated by Annex VI of Marpol, this is the only international regulatory instrument to concern itself with such pollution from ships.
Indeed, the Kyoto agreement does not cover ship emissions and no existing or proposed European Union legislation is applicable.
Furthermore, with the world fleet set to expand from its current level of around 70,000 ships, helped by the current spate of newbuildings that stands at around of 20,000; by 2020, the corresponding increase in emissions will have a severe environmental impact.
In terms of fuel burned by ships the present-day annual amount in excess of 200 million tonnes could double by 2020 and with considerably more international attention being paid to emissions from aircraft, some environmental observers are claiming that ship emissions are far more damaging and account for twice the amount of CO2 produced by aircraft.
Overall impact
This lobby also claims that major governments have chosen to ignore the damage to the environment that is being caused by ships.
Yet with 90 per cent of world trade being conducted by sea transport, such a comparison is seen by some as misleading, in view of the essential nature of this mode of transport -they claim that commercial necessity is far higher per tonne of CO2 than that of aircraft.
But despite the cost-effectiveness of shipping (aircraft transport around 40 million tonnes annually compared to six billion by the maritime industry) the overall impact on the environment cannot be ignored particularly with (the worst) statistics showing ships consume at least two billion barrels of oil a year and in doing so emit 30 per cent of all nitrous oxide and 20 per cent of all sulphur dioxide emissions.
Faced with the predicted seriousness of the consequences if the shipping industry ignores the problem, the delegates at Rotterdam were in agreement that the shipping sector was expanding to such an extent that measures must be taken both technologically and regulatory.
The conference heard that the potential does exist for emissions to be reduced by 17.6 per cent by 2010 and 28.2 per cent by 2020.
Technical improvements such as propeller hydrodynamics could reduce global CO2 emissions by up to 30 per cent on newbuildings and 20 per cent from existing tonnage.
In addition, better ship maintenance, reduction in passage speeds and renewable fuels were all viable improvements to be made.
However, the regulatory framework should be effective to accomplish such improvement.
The most telling statement came from IMO secretary general Efthimios Mitropoulos, who was quoted by AFP as saying the existing IMO emission targets that come into effect by February 2010 will not be effective unless developing nations (that account for a quarter of the world's tonnage) are included.
He said, "In my view, if reductions in CO2 emissions from ships are to benefit the environment as a whole, they must apply globally to all ships in the world fleet, regardless of their flag - It seems completely incongruous that two ships, carrying similar cargo, loaded in the same port, sailing at the same speed and having the same destination, should be treated differently because they are registered under two different flags."
The writer is a marine consultant based in Dubai.
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