U.N. shipping agency adopts emissions rules

LONDON – The U.N. agency regulating international shipping decided Friday that the global merchant marine, which ferries most of the world’s trade, must meet energy efficiency standards and cut carbon pollution.

The decision by a powerful committee of the International Maritime Organization attacks a growing source of greenhouse gases and is the first measure on climate change to apply equally to countries regardless of whether they are from the industrial or developing world.

About 50,000 cargo ships carry 90 percent of world trade, and most ships are powered by heavily polluting oil known as bunker fuels. The IMO says shipping was responsible for 2.7 percent of global carbon emissions in 2007, but that would double or even triple by mid-century if no action is taken.

Concluding a weeklong meeting, the IMO’s Environment Protection Committee resolved that all ships built in the future must reduce pollution from today’s average, according to an efficiency index for ships of varying sizes and types.

The new regulations say it will be up to the ship builders to decide how they would meet the new standards.

“As long as the required energy-efficiency level is attained, ship designers and builders would be free to use the most cost-efficient solutions for the ship to comply with the regulations,” the resolution said.

But in a concession to developing countries, it deferred the measure for at least four years after it takes effect, probably next year or 2013.

The European Commission said the new standards would apply to about 70 percent of all emissions from new ships.

Some environmentalists were lukewarm about the accord. The vote was “bittersweet,” said Jacqueline Savitz, of the nonprofit Oceana. “There will be no change to existing ships, which are currently pumping a billion tonnes of CO2 each year,” she said, and it will take another dozen years before the agreement delivers benefits with new ships.

Under the new rules, ships contracted in the first five years after 2015 would have to improve fuel efficiency by 10 percent, and the standard would be tightened every subsequent five years.