The IMO agreed to adjourn its extraordinary session of the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) which met between 14-17 October with the aim of adopting IMO Net-Zero Framework. The extraordinary session will resume in 12 months’ time and in the meanwhile, Member States will pursue their efforts towards building consensus on the Framework.
The IMO Net-Zero Framework of which the adoption is now postponed was already approved at the MEPC 83 session in April this year and was supposed to include a global fuel standard and a GHG pricing mechanism.
FEPORT supported the IMO agreement as an essential step to speed up the decarbonisation of international shipping. At the same time, an international system could have complemented EU fit for 55 legislation such as FuelEU and ETS Maritime and thereby mitigate potential negative impacts on competitiveness that ports in the EU are now facing.
It is now more important than ever that the EU adopts impactful mitigation measures to protect port stakeholders against cargo diversion and impacts on their business.
