The IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee in April attracted an unusual level of scrutiny from the global media, with the regulator agreeing to cut shipping’s greenhouse gas emissions to 50% of their 2008 levels by 2050.
While the significance of this commitment is not in doubt, its long tail and aspirational language leave plenty of room for fine-tuning later.
But a more definite outcome from the 72nd session of the Marine Environmental Protection Committee (MEPC72) merits closer attention: the meeting rubber stamped the approval for the Ballast Water Management Systems (BWMS) Convention that was agreed at MEPC71 a year earlier.
