Novelties in the international policy towards mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions from ships and necessary measures in marine industry. Part 1. Analysis of regulatory documents governing the new policy of greenhouse gas emission mitigation

Abstract

Object and purpose of research. This paper is intended to analyse new provisions of IMO policy towards reduction of greenhouse gas emission from international ship traffic, as well as Russian and EU documents governing the environmental policy in the marine industry towards implementation of the Paris Agreement of 2015. This publication is the first in the series of three articles tackling various aspects of new shipbuilding policy and tasks that have to be accomplished to meet IMO directives. Subject matter and methods. This paper is an analytical review of documentation and publications on this topic. It relies on IMO documents, EU directives and governing documents of the Russian Federation. Main results. This paper analyses the novelties in the IMO policy towards mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions in the light of the set-out task, i.e. to achieve 70% reduction in the emissions from marine ship traffic by the year 2050 as compared to 2008. To this effect, it is suggested to introduce power efficiency indexes not only for newbuildings, as it was before, but also for the ships already in service. Along with this, another novelty was the introduction of Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII) understood as the result of year-toyear fuel consumption monitoring and assigned as per the rating system. In the new system, CII rating requirements will progressively become more and more stringent so as to create a stimulus for ship owners to take new measures towards reduction of ship emissions every several years. The analysis has shown that emission reduction for both newbuildings and in-service ships requires more research and development. Conclusion. The analysis has shown that the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from marine traffic stipulated in the new governing documents of IMO and European Union prescribes emission reduction to the levels several times lower than those currently achieved through considerable efforts of shipbuilders and used as reference points in ship design progress in the years 2010–2025. Newly introduced actual emission ratings for each given ship enforced by the threat of its banning from international voyages requires periodic upgrade of the ships in service, with implementation of new technical measures. At this stage, shipbuilding industry must identify above-mentioned measures (they will be analysed in Part II and Part III of this series) and prepare their implementation.