The organization responsible for setting global environmental standards for shipping approved rules designed to curb the industry’s carbon emissions, triggering criticism that its measures won’t do enough to help tackle climate change.
Αbout 90% of the world’s physical trade is moved by ship, and the sector spews about as much CO2 into the atmosphere as Germany and France combined. On Tuesday, the International Maritime Organization approved rules aimed, at cleaning up the industry by improving vessels’ carbon efficiency.
Some countries and non-government organizations said the measures were inconsistent with the Paris Agreement. The IMO’s much more ambitious target — to halve shipping’s outright emissions by 2050 — wasn’t a central part of the discussions.
The new rules “will never take us anywhere near the absolute reductions that we need to achieve by 2050,” said Maria Skipper Schwenn, executive director at Danske Rederier, which represents Danish shipping, adding that the regulations are a stumbling block for a real transition to carbon neutrality because they don’t reward ships for performing well.
Source: Bloomberg
