As the 74th meeting of IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC 74) closed last month, delegates began to think about the implications of what they had decided during a busy week of debate and working groups, writes Paul Gunton in an article published in Ship Insight.
IMO Acknowledges Work Done
IMO secretary-general Kitack Lim acknowledged the amount of work in his summing-up address to the meeting, in which he set out a few of its achievements.
- 0.5% Sulphur Limit: Among the details he highlighted was its work to support the consistent implementation of the 0.50% sulphur limit, for which he said the secretariat will hold a roundtable meeting in June “with representatives from across stakeholders to review progress and share information” to be followed by a seminar at IMO in Q3 this year.
- GHG Emission Reduction: He also summarised its discussions on IMO’s Initial Strategy on reduction of GHG, during which it finalised a procedure to assess the impacts on member states of the possible measures. Specifically, on EEDI, Mr Lim said that the conference had “strengthened the energy efficiency framework by bringing forward the entry into effect date of Phase 3 to 2022 for several ship types and enhancing the EEDI reduction rate for containerships”.
- Ballast Water Management: He also noted that the meeting had approved draft amendments to the Ballast Water Management Convention, including the commissioning testing of ballast water management systems.
- Marine Littering: Another pollution-related theme from the meeting that he highlighted was its discussions about marine plastic litter, including the terms of reference for an IMO study. Some progress was also made on developing a strategy to address marine plastic litter from ships.
Industry Response
Industry response to the meeting has been positive, in particular from the International Chamber of Shipping, which welcomed its decisions on EEDI.
Not so enthusiastic was the Clean Arctic Alliance, which released a statement on Friday evening expressing its frustration over what is described as “Member states’ failure to address the risk to the Arctic from emissions of black carbon from international shipping.” It was referring to a proposal by the Clean Shipping Coalition – which has observer status at IMO – and Clean Arctic Alliance member Pacific Environment for ships to stop using HFO immediately because of its black carbon emissions, which was not taken up.
It did acknowledge, however, that there was “some consolation that, as the meeting closed, it was agreed that concrete proposals should be put forward for consideration at [the next meeting of the Pollution Prevent and Response Sub-Committee] PPR 7 in February 2020.”
Greek Shipowners Appreciates Efforts
The Union of Greek Shipowners (UGS) has said though a disproportionate share of responsibility is still placed on shipowners, the IMO made “significant progress in terms of addressing a number of important and unforeseen problems with regard to the global 0.5% sulphur cap regime only months before the commencement of its implementation and enforcement”, reports the Seatrade Maritime News, Greece Reporter, David Glass.
UGS, president, Theodore Veniamis said: “Although a disproportionate responsibility is still placed upon shipowners / operators, we at least now have some useful tools in hand which will hopefully help towards achieving a smoother implementation process.”
Towards Robust Data Collection System: UGS
In a statement, the UGS noted the May 13 – 17 MEPC 74 meeting made progress “towards a robust data collection system and feedback mechanism on fuel oil quality and availability, adopted the revised template on the Fuel Oil Non-Availability Report (FONAR) in the 2019 Guidelines for consistent implementation of the 0.5% sulphur cap on marine fuels in the light of operational and safety considerations and gave due consideration to a pragmatic approach by port and flag states of vessels’ non-compliance due to reasons beyond their control”.
Veniamis Pleased with GHG Roadmaps
MEPC 74 also embraced the proposal for inclusion of a new output in the committee’s work programme on evaluation and harmonisation of rules and guidance on the discharges of exhaust gas cleaning systems (EGCSs) into waters and potentially the assessment of the overall “equivalency” of these systems.
Veniamis said: “We are also pleased to note that, regarding the Green House Gas emissions reduction roadmap, it is now recognised the modus operandi of bulk / tramp shipping requires the adoption of prescriptive short-term measures in order to substantially involve vessels’ charterers. The proposal submitted by Greece and fully supported by the UGS is now part of the IMO’s list of short-term measures due for further consideration.”
IMO Commended for Giving Safety a Priority
The UGS notes Greek shipowners, were among the first to highlight the challenges of the 2020 global sulphur cap and the essential features of bulk / tramp shipping, will continue to contribute with their hands-on experience and know-how to the environmental discussions and to the important work that is still ongoing at the UN IMO and the upcoming critical Maritime Safety Committee meeting.
“The UN IMO should be especially commended for giving precedence to safety and environmental protection over formal compliance and commercial considerations on these crucial issues for shipping, world trade and a sustainable environment, ensuring that any uncertainties and deficiencies of the new regime will not be turned into excuses for distortion of competition,” said Veniamis.
Veniamis made no direct reference to controlling ship speed, though Greece and the UGS have been championing ‘slower speeds’ to curb emissions.
Chronology of Discussion at the meeting
- First, in a commentary published on 14 May), the Ship Insight mentioned a difference of opinion over a detail that had reached the committee from PPR 6 that related to the margin of error in testing as-delivered fuel samples. Under the proposal, if a test result showed a sample’s sulphur content exceeded 0.5% it would fail. This contrasted with tests of in-service samples, for which a second sample to be checked
- This was referred to the Working Group on Air Pollution and Energy Efficiency, which submitted draft amendments to MARPOL Annex VI that have resulted in a common approach being taken for all sample tests that take account of the potential margin of error – effectively overturning the PPR 6 proposal.
- A subsequent report published on 15 May, outlined a number of points that had been referred to a working group that was tasked to consider, among other things, proposals to amend the Ballast Water Management Convention’s Regulation E-1, which relates to commissioning testing. When its report came back to the plenary session, it was agreed to amend the convention in that way, with a view to it being adopted at MEPC 75. However, the committee agreed that testing should begin as soon as possible, without waiting for that amendment formally to come into force.
- Speed was a headline topic for MEPC 74. The Working Group on Reduction of GHG emissions from ships considered a number of proposed approaches for short-term measures to achieve this. One of those was to “develop a speed optimisation and speed reduction mechanism” but the working group proposed that this should be considered along with other approaches with a view to developing draft amendments to MARPOL Annex VI.
- The working group asked MEPC to ‘note’ its discussion and this will be taken up at the sixth and seventh Intercessional Working Groups on the reduction of GHG emissions from ships, which are both due to take place before MEPC 75.
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Source: Ship Insight , Seatrade Maritime News
