Shipping commits to CO2 road map

EARLIER this month, as US voters chose their 45th president, the United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference was underway in Marrakesh, Morocco. The two events are linked as President-elect Donald Trump made it clear during the election campaign that he wants his country to pull out of the Paris Agreement on reducing greenhouse gases,especially carbon dioxide (CO2).

Whether that will happen and, if so, what impact it will have on the whole Paris process remains to be seen. For the time being, though, the shipping industry collectively is putting its weight behind the recent International Maritime Organization (IMO) agreement on a CO2 Road Map.

It is doing so against the background of considerable criticism from some "green" campaign groups that the IMO's Marine Environment Protection Committee at the end of October achieved little and avoided taking decisive action to cut the…