UN body meets to act on ship gases, cleaner seas
by Stefano Ambrogi

Reuters    Translate This Article
31 March 2008

LONDON, March 31 (Reuters) - Curbing greenhouse gas emissions from ships, slashing other air pollutants they generate and cleaning up the world's oceans, top the agenda at a meeting of the world's chief maritime body in London this week.

The U.N. International Maritime Organisation (IMO) meeting, seen as one of the most crucial in years, focuses on how best to reduce harmful ship fuel pollutants like sulphur dioxide emissions and nitrous oxides.

'Shipping should not be allowed to become a scapegoat for those who find it a 'soft target' singling it out from other modes of transport, when data show it as having greener credentials than them,' said IMO Secretary-General Efthimous Mitropoulos, opening the meeting on Monday.

The week-long meeting also hopes to speed up policies to tackle growing carbon dioxide emissions emitted by ships, by strict international regulation or through industry-led initiatives.

Other hot topics include:

• Pushing governments to ratify a law stopping the spread of destructive invasive 'alien' species through the discharge of ballast water across the world.

The law adopted in 2004 has only been ratified by 12 countries, representing just 3.64 percent of the world's shipping.

In a similar fashion to other IMO conventions, the law will only enter into force 12 months after no less than 30 nations, representing 35 percent of the world's tonnage ratify it.

• Debate a draft text of a new convention that allows for the recycling of merchant ships in a safe and environmentally sound manner.

• Debate the creation of Particularly Sensitive Sea Areas protecting unique and fragile coral reef ecosystems, like one designated for the northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

The crux of the meeting, however, will focus on amending existing marine air pollution laws, that are seen by critics as woefully out of date.

Nations that are signatories to IMO are likely to opt for the use of very low sulphur fuels in special emission-control areas around the world, experts say.

The exact sulphur limit of the ship fuel is still to be agreed, as is a realistic timetable for both the ship industry and the world's oil industry to react to.

The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) speculates that a portion of the world's 50,000 strong merchant fleet could be required to switch to cleaner distillate fuels in the special areas close to coastlines.

Copyright 2008 Reuters. Reprinted with permission from Reuters. Reuters content is the intellectual property of Reuters or its third party content providers. Any copying, republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. 

Reuters and the Reuters Sphere Logo are registered trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world. For additional information about Reuters content and services, please visit Reuters website at www.reuters.com. License # REU-1160-MES   



Translation software is not perfect; however if you would like to try it, you can translate this page using:

(Google) Select a language English to Afrikaans English to Albanian English to Arabic English to Belarusian English to Bulgarian English to Catalan English to Chinese (Simplified) English to Chinese (Traditional) English to Croatian English to Czech English to Danish English to Dutch English to Estonian English to Filipino English to Finnish English to French English to Galician English to German English to Greek English to Hebrew English to Hindi English to Hungarian English to Icelandic English to Indonesian English to Irish English to Italian English to Japanese English to Korean English to Latvian English to Lithuanian English to Macedonian English to Malay English to Maltese English to Norwegian English to Persian English to Polish English to Portuguese English to Romanian English to Russian English to Serbian English to Slovak English to Slovenian English to Spanish English to Swahili English to Swedish English to Thai English to Turkish English to Ukrainian English to Vietnamese English to Welsh English to Yiddish

(Altavista babelfish) Select a languageEnglish to Chinese-simpEnglish to Chinese-tradEnglish to DutchEnglish to PortugueseEnglish to FrenchEnglish to GermanEnglish to GreekEnglish to ItalianEnglish to JapaneseEnglish to KoreanEnglish to RussianEnglish to Spanish

Send Good News to Global Good News.

Your comments.