Addressing the matter of possible emission reduction targets, David Tongue, director of regulatory affairs at ICS, stated that the IMO has tacitly agreed to mandatory MRV, and that with that, it has been agreed that the 2009 IMO greenhouse gas study needs updating.
"I think it is significant that EC-funded studies show that the 2009 estimate [of ships' emissions] was 20% overestimated," Tongue said.
"When we talk about the recently released EU parliamentary legislation, the preamble clearly states that a 75% reduction in emissions can be achieved through technical and operational measures, I would suggest this is completely and utterly unrealistic. This figure was taken from the 2009 GHG study. That was simply an addition of all the possible mitigation measures that could be put into place, simple addition, no consideration that one cancels another, or you can't use one with another."
The panel, chaired by Peter Hinchliffe, secretary general, ICS, focussed particularly on the matter of indexing ships by their environmental performance.
"I think there's a little bit of misunderstanding when it comes to indexing and what we're trying to do," argued Roxana Lesovici, policy coordinator, European Commission, "I think the MBM debate, for the time being, is dead; so this is exactly why the governments and the IMO are asking, can we do something that works on something the ships can do?"
With the MRV debate in its infancy, and draft proposals from various regions on how best to proceed, Lesovici sees it as a positive time, "This is the beginning of the debate [on MRV], so this is the time to influence that discussion… nobody is trying to sit behind closed doors and come up with a formula, we need to do something so that we can launch a debate."
The IMO membership is not decided, should it be an index that compares ships amongst themselves? Or should it be a simple, ship specific value for that energy efficiency measure? I think this is where we should have a proper debate."
John Lyrias, of the Union of Greek Shipowners, assured that the industry "Is not against indexing, but as a matter of fact, unless you take into account the realities of shipping, it will not be accurate, and therefore it is going to be prejudicial."
"You have two different sorts of indexing" commented Tongue, "EEDI, energy efficiency design index, is a snapshot in time, it's a new ship, and it is a ship operating at maximum draft, at capacity, operating at 75% MCR (maximum continuous rating), that's its level of fuel consumption. That can be used everywhere to compare a ship to a ship, because that's a baseline."
"It was fully agreed that you couldn't have an operational index that is comparable, because if you take two ships that are exactly the same, they will have a different fuel consumption. So you've got to be very careful when comparing different ship types, because if you compare individual ships, they can't be the same, it is how that ship is operated, and that is where we believe the Energy Efficiency Operational Indicator really comes into its force."
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