The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) has published its latest Annual Review of maritime policy developments in advance of its Annual General Meeting and to coincide with this week’s meeting of the IMO Maritime Safety Committee.
Key issues covered in this year’s ICS Annual Review include the impact of the rescue at sea crisis in the Mediterranean on the shipping industry; the status of IMO environmental regulations on low sulphur fuel and ballast water management; the shipping industry’s efforts to deliver further CO2 emissions reductions; and an ongoing ICS initiative to encourage a new approach to the development of future IMO regulation.
The ICS Annual Review also provides updates on the wide-ranging scope of ICS’s activities as the principal global trade association for shipowners and operators, including safety and operations, labour affairs, manning and training, maritime law and insurance, and shipping and trade policy.
In the introduction to the Review, ICS Chairman, Masamichi Morooka, observes: “In December 2015, the attention of the world will be focused on the critical United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. ICS will be representing the industry in order explain the impressive performance of international shipping, which reduced its total CO2 emissions by more than 10% between 2007 and 2012.”
The 2015 Review can now be downloaded free of charge from the ICS website. Printed copies are also being distributed via ICS’s member national shipowners’ associations, which collectively represent all sectors and trades and more than 80% of the world merchant fleet.