With the Secretary General of the UN having underlined the importance of the development and adoption of a global agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions from all sources by December 2009, there is general agreement that the IMO should work together with other UN agencies on the general issue of Greenhouse Gas Emissions, but take a leading role in addressing emissions from ships, recognising the role that technical, operational and market-based measures might play.  

Technical/Operational Measures

Proposed technical/operational measures include a mandatory Energy Efficiency Design Index for new ships, that would require them to be designed with fuel efficiency in mind and credited with an efficiency index at design stage.  A formula for this was developed at an intersessional meeting in June 2008 and it was reviewed during the fifty-eighth session of the MEPC in October 2008.  Administrations and industry are expected to conduct trials to test the assumptions in the formula and report the outcome to an intersessional working group scheduled to meet in March 2009. Further information on this can be found in the Members' Area

An Energy Efficiency Operational Index has been developed and is available as a voluntary measure to be applied by ships.  Experience thus far, however, has shown that while this might possibly be a useful tool for assessing efficiency in a single ship over a period of time, results have been variable, even on similar ships on similar voyages. It has been suggested that it could be included in the Ship Efficiency Management Plan that is being developed for possible use in implementation of the ISM Code.

 Market Based Mechanisms

There are two possibilities currently under discussion:

• An emissions trading scheme that would oblige owners to trade in the carbon market, with permission for a ship to call at a port being tied to participation in a scheme for emissions trading under a common cap.  CO2 allowances would have to match bunker consumption as demonstrated through bunker delivery notes.

• A global bunker levy, to be paid into a central fund which would be used to fund environmental projects. An initial proposal from Denmark has already been rejected by the GHG working group by those opposed to the notion of the UN effectively levelling taxes and concerns about member states having to collect and apportion such taxes

Discussions at MEPC 58 revealed that there are still widely differing opinions on this issue, and talks will continue at the intersessional meeting in March 2009