LAST week, the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) agreed to urge the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to adopt some CO2 (carbon dioxide) reduction objectives which ICS describes as "dramatic".

ICS says that at its annual general meeting in Istanbul, it committed itself and the international shipping sector as a whole to objectives that match the ambitions of the Paris agreement on climate change. In a submission to IMO member states, being made in conjunction with other shipping organisations, ICS will propose that IMO should adopt three Aspirational Objectives. These are:

Speaking in Istanbul, the ICS chairman and president of the Singapore Shipping Association, Esben Poulsson, said: "It is very important that IMO sends a clear and unambiguous signal to the global community that shipping's regulators have agreed some ambitious objectives, with numbers and dates, for reducing the sector's CO2 emissions, in the same way that land-based activity is now covered by government commitments under the Paris Agreement."