Measuring, monitoring, reporting and verification of shipping emissions: Evaluating transparency and answerability

• Published date: 01 November 2019
• Date: 01 November 2019
• Author: Md Saiful Karim,Felicity Deane,Anna Huggins
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/reel.12308

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  RECIEL. 2019;28:258–267.

wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/reel

1 | INTRODUCTION

The maritime t ransport sector is a sign ificant and growing contri bu‐

tor to global gree nhouse gas (GHG) e missions.1 A stud y conducted

by the Internatio nal Maritime O rganization (I MO) shows that ship‐

ping re presented ab out 2.2 perce nt of glob al carbon dioxide (CO2)

emissions i n 2012 and CO2 e missions from the maritime sec tor are

projected to incre ase by 50–250 percent by 2050.2 This article anal‐

yses recent meas ures introduced for measur ing, monitoring, repor t‐

ing and veri fication (MMRV) of shipping emissions in the context of

the European Uni on (EU) and IMO, evaluating t he potential for these

measures to contr ibute to transparency a nd answerability goal s.

The IMO has played a ma jor role in the prevention of mari ne pol‐

lution from ships. The Convention on the Inter‐governmental Maritime

Con sult ative Organ izati on (IM CO) was a dopte d in 1948 an d came into

force i n 1958. The IMCO, now the IM O, assumed the manage ment

role of the 1954 I nternational Conventi on for the Prevention of

Pollution of the Sea by O il (OILPOL) soon after the es tablishment of

the organization.3 This was followed by the adop tion of a number of

marine environment related legal instruments under the auspices of

the IMO in the 1960s.4 The Marine Environment Protection

Comm ittee (M EPC) of IMO was subse quentl y estab lished in 1973 and

in the same year the Internationa l Convention fo r the Preventi on of

Pollution f rom Ships (MAR POL) was adopt ed to replace the OILPOL

Convention.5 The issue of air pollut ion from ships, however, was not

considered unt il the 1980s and a new Annex (Ann ex VI) to the

MARPOL Co nvention was added in 1997 for preventio n of air pollu‐

tion from ships.6

The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention

on Cl imate Change (UNFCCC) in 1997 c alls on developed country

parties to negotiate GHG emiss ion reductio ns from m arine bunker

1 A Bows‐Lark in et al, ‘Shippi ng Charts a Hig h Carbon Cour se’ (2015) 5 Nature C limate

Change 293.

2 IMO, ‘Third I MO Greenhous e Gas Study 2014’ (IMO 2 015) 1, 4.

3 MS Karim, Pre vention of Pollut ion of the Marine E nvironment fro m Vessels: The Poten tial

and Limits of the International Maritime Organisation (Springer 20 15) 4.

4 ibid.

5 Internatio nal Convention f or the Preventio n of Pollution fro m Ships (adopted o n 11

February 1973 , as modified by th e Protocol of 17 Febru ary 1978, entered i nto force 2

October 1983) 13 40 UNTS 61 (MARPO L Convention); Ka rim (n 3) 25; D Bodans ky,

‘Regulatin g Greenhouse G as Emissions fro m Ships: The Role o f the Internatio nal

Maritime Or ganization’ (2 016) /papers.ss rn.com/abstr act=2813785>.

6 Karim (n 3) 50–52; B Mar tinez Romer a, Regime Interac tion and Clima te Change: The Ca se

of International Aviation and Maritime Transport (Routledge 2017).

Received: 25 Feb ruary 2019 

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  Revised: 4 July 2019 

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  Accepted: 25 July 20 19

DOI: 10 .1111/reel .12308

SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE

Measuring, monitoring, reporting and verification of shipping

emissions: Evaluating transparency and answerability

Felicity Deane  | Anna Huggins  | Md Saiful Karim

© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsi ngton Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Stre et, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

Correspondence

Email: felicity.deane@qut.edu.au In October 2016, the Inte rnational Maritim e Organization (IMO) a dopted manda‐

tory fuel da ta report ing requireme nts by amending Annex VI of the Internatio nal

Convention for the Preventi on of Pollution from Ships. Before the adoption of the

IMO Data Collection System (IMO DCS), the European Union (EU) introduced a regu‐

lation req uiring monitoring, reporting an d verification of greenhouse gas emissions

from ships as an initial s tep to inform furth er action. This re gulation enabled t he

EU to include greenhou se gas emissions from shi pping as a part of the ir collective

climate change st rategy, known as the EU MRV s ystem. This article a nalyses the EU

MRV system and th e IMO DCS against standar ds of transparency and answe rability.

It argues that whilst neither the EU MRV system nor the IMO DCS promotes opti‐

mal transpare ncy or answerability, the EU MRV represents a f ramework that comes

closer to promoting ans werability through transpa rency.