CO2 reduction in the spotlight

Shipping’s green credentials will come under scrutiny at the Green Ship Technology conference in Hamburg this week when the merits of the technical solutions and proposed trading mechanisms for emissions are debated.

As the industry looks to the IMO to shape its policy and agree to a set of international goals that it can follow, the engineering community is working on ways to meet what could be a $50bn industry. At the top of the regulatory agenda is carbon dioxide, as the IMO works towards a set of industry goals in time for the November meeting in Copenhagen of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. If the IMO has not achieved a level of agreement on CO2 reduction goals, the shipping industry risks having to adhere to regional limits.

Earlier this month, the IMO’s special working group of experts on greenhouse gases met in London to develop a mandatory design index and a voluntary operational index for the industry to follow. The IMO has been pushing hard to get development and agreement on the issue of reducing shipping’s CO2 emissions and the two indexes are crucial to its success.

The Energy Efficiency Design Index has been formulated to stimulate technical development of all the elements influencing the energy efficiency of a ship.

The working group assessed reports from organisations that have tested the index over the last six months. The greenhouse gases working group also considered how to improve the Energy Efficiency Operational Index, which enables owners to directly assess the impact of operational changes to CO2 production. The index has been available on a trial basis for the past four years.

The IMO has also instructed the group of experts to develop a ship energy management plan that offers guidance on best practices, such as improved voyage planning, speed optimisation, improved fleet management and cargo handling, as well as energy management for individual ships.

While the IMO is pushing forward the legislative process to ensure it achieves some sort of system by the time secretary-general Efthimios Mitropoulos goes to Copenhagen in November, the technology companies are also further developing their solutions. Debate has revolved around the merits of various market-based measures, such as bunker tariffs or Shipping Emissions Abatement and Trading’s cap and trade proposal.

The technology industry is also working on developing practical solutions to reduce emissions. The Lloyd’s List Green Ship Technology conference in Hamburg this week offers some recognition of the solutions being worked on by marine engineers and will provide a chance for the shipping industry to acknowledge the efforts being made to reduce the impact of its discharges or emissions.