The Minister of Shipping & Island Policy of Greece, Mr. Giannis Plakiotakis, expressed his satisfaction with the complete package of additional measures to reduce CO2 for the existing global fleet, which was agreed last Friday by the plenary session of the Member States of the International Maritime Organization (IMO).
The agreement provides for a series of legally binding measures to ensure a 40% reduction in the global carbon footprint of the global merchant fleet by 2030, so that shipping can be completely free of fossil fuels after 2050. The new agreement demonstrates the IMO's ability, as a global regulator of the shipping industry, to design and legislate appropriate measures to achieve binding targets for reducing ship emissions in the spirit of the Paris Agreement. Commenting on this positive development, Mr. Plakiotakis stated the following: "The shipping industry is a global industry that requires global rules. Any regional solution will simply create a chaotic system of contradictory regional and national CO2 reduction regimes, which will derail negotiations to create a realistic and sustainable global regulatory framework."