IMO approves controversial draft amendments on shipping emissions

Environmental groups have lashed out at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) after it approved controversial draft amendments to the MARPOL convention, which they claim will fail to bring about a reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the shipping sector.

Campaigners believe that the text violates the initial IMO’s GHG strategy by failing to reduce emissions before 2023, not peaking emissions as soon as possible and not setting ship CO2 emissions on a pathway consistent with the Paris Agreement goals.

John Mags, president of the Clean Shipping Coalition and senior policy advisor at Seas at Risk, said: “As scientists are telling us we have less than ten years to stop our headlong rush to climate catastrophe, the IMO has decided that emissions can keep growing for ten years at least.