The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), the global trade association for ship operators, has put forward a comprehensive proposal for a global levy on carbon emissions from ships, in what would be “a first for any industrial sector”.
New Delhi, September 06, 2021: ICS, which represents the world’s national shipowner associations and more than 80% of the merchant fleet, presented a submission to the UN calling for an internationally accepted market-based measure to accelerate the uptake and deployment of zero-carbon fuels.
The new proposal was backed by Intercargo, the trade association for dry cargo shipowners.
According to the reports published in offshore-energy.biz the money would go into the International Maritime Organisation’s “IMO Climate Fund” which would be used to deploy the bunkering infrastructure required in ports throughout the world to supply fuels such as hydrogen and ammonia.
The fund would calculate the climate contributions to be made by ships, collect the contributions, and give evidence they have been made.
To minimise burden on the United Nation member states and ensure the rapid establishment of the carbon tax, the framework proposed by industry would use the mechanism already proposed by governments for a separate $5 billion research and development fund.
The R&D fund, of a mandatory $2 levy per tonne on marine fuel, would be used entirely to fund the research and development of alternative zero-carbon fuels and propulsion systems offshore-energy.biz
IMO is scheduled to approve the R&D fund at a meeting which is to be held in November immediately following the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP).