Sulphur emission enigma

IN five months' time, we will be just a day away from the implementation of the 0.1 per cent sulphur limit for ship emissions within the Emission Control Areas (ECAs) of North America and northern Europe. There are three obvious and related questions. Is the shipping industry ready? Will the limits be rigorously enforced? And will that enforcement be uniform?

The answers are not perhaps as straight forward as it might seem. Taking the first question first, the answer has, generally speaking, got to be no. But the retort could justifiably be "ready for what?". That is a point I will return to later.

So, what about enforcement? Will it be rigorous? The signs are that it probably will. The Netherlands, Germany and the Nordic and Baltic countries generally take a tough line on …