Shipping groups exchange broadsides at global maritime meeting

THE London headquarters of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) was a busy place last week. Almost 400 representatives from nearly 70 countries, as well as from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the European Commission, the League of Arab States and around 30 non-governmental organisations turned up for the sixth session of the Intersessional Working Group on Reduction of GHG (greenhouse gas) Emissions from Ships.

Depending on whose view you accept, they either did some wonderful work on moving shipping towards a lower carbon footprint, or came very close to wasting their own and everybody else's time.

The IMO's view is that the meeting "made significant progress in pushing forward with work to help achieve the ambitious targets set out in the initial IMO strategy on reduction of GHG emissions from ships, which aims, as a matter of urgency, to decarbonise international shipping in this century".