According to industry body Zero Emissions Ship Technology Association (ZESTAs), which enjoys consultative status at IMO, increasing efficiency of ship operation is the single most effective decarbonisation measure, and the IMO needs to incentivise shipowners towards efficiency measures.
ZESTAs has laid down four points which it thinks should be central to the IMO’s MEPC81 decisions:
- CII needs to incentivise shipowners towards efficiency measures: ZESTA believes that there is widespread agreement that shipping can achieve 40% emissions reductions with known efficiencies alone: efficiencies are the low hanging fruit and that is where current efforts should focus efforts today. Although the development and scaling of alternative fuels is important, ZESTAs says the key is to concentrate efforts more deliberately on the scaling of available and proven technologies. With investment to drive innovation and influence policy, these market-ready technologies offer the potential to reduce emissions even further.
- IMO must commit to measuring N2O and methane, and its GHG strategy must include measurement of these parameters.
- Responsibility for emissions must span the full lifecycle, from cradle to grave, to prevent the dumping of emissions which become ‘someone else’s problem’. Increases in dissolved CO2, much said to be coming from ship exhausts and scrubber wash water, have increased ocean acidification by 33% since 1850, rising at a rate not seen in millions of years. Ocean acidification is reducing oxygen levels, with disastrous effects on marine life, more than 50% of which is believed to have died off since the 1950s, at a rate of more than 1% per year. The acidity level is expected to reach pH 7.95 by 2045-2050, at which point carbonate-based lifeforms begin to dissolve and the food chain breaks down.
- Continuous emissions monitoring (CEMS) has evolved and is considered to represent an accurate and fair way to measure vessel emissions. ZESTAs says it should be reintroduced and made mandatory to ensure that owners and operators that properly maintain their engines should not be penalised for doing so. True emissions from vessels with the same engine, using the same fuel can be miles apart, depending on how an engine is maintained.
Madadh MacLaine, Secretary General, ZESTAs said: “The simplest way to reduce emissions from shipping is onboard measurement per transport work. This will inevitably push ship owners toward efficiency measures and engine maintenance, both of which will obviously reduce emissions.”
