International Maritime Organization Crawling Toward Cutting Bunker Fuel Use, Maybe By 2023
The International Maritime Organization inched forward this week on its promises to ban the use of heavy fuel oil in the Arctic and reduce black carbon emissions from ships. Meeting in London, the United Nations regulatory body's Pollution Prevention and Response subcommittee began work on defining which fuels would be banned and how. It also came up with a list of possible measures for cutting emissions of black carbon but didn't set priorities.
An assessment of the economic, environmental and social impacts of a ban, put in motion last year, is expected to be finished before the subcommittee's next meeting in 2020. The Clean Arctic Alliance, a group of more than a dozen environmental organizations, issued a statement that said it "welcomes the progress" but noted that much work still must be done if the ban is to be phased in between 2021 and 2023. Heavy fuel oil, a particularly dirty form of oil, poses a significant environmental hazard if spilled. It also emits high levels of black carbon, a short-lived climate pollutant that also affects human health.
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The heavy fuel oil ban is supported by Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and the United States, and environmental advocates hope it will be adopted by the IMO in 2021 and phased in by 2023. Russia and Canada, two Arctic nations whose ships burn the most heavy fuel oil, have yet to get behind the ban, with Russia recommending alternative measures for the IMO to reduce the risk of spills in the Arctic.
"Canada is still hemming and hawing about it, Russia is kind of negative, but they are not stamping their feet and saying 'no, no, no,'" said John Maggs, president of the Clean Shipping Coalition, who attended the IMO meeting. This week's meeting generated a list of approximately 20 measures to reduce the black carbon pollution from ships worldwide but did not prioritize the measures as environmental advocates had hoped.
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22022019/shipping-pollution-IMO-heavy-fuel-oil-ban-black-carbon-measures-united-nations
