Call for Switch to Cleaner Shipping Fuel To Cut Arctic Black Carbon Emissions

As a meeting of the International Maritime Organization’s Pollution Prevention and Response committee opens today, Clean Shipping Coalition and the Clean Arctic Alliance call on the IMO to radically reduce the impact of black carbon emissions from shipping on Arctic sea and glacier ice, by putting in place a compulsory requirement for ships across the whole Arctic to immediately switch to cleaner distillate fuels. This follows an open letter published by the Clean Arctic Alliance to IMO Secretary General Kitack Lim, asking him to personally call on all IMO members to treat the Arctic climate crisis with the urgency that it demands.

The reduction in black carbon emissions, which are a potent climate forcer, would be achieved through a mandatory switch from dirty residual fuels to distillate fuels by ships operating across the broader Arctic, given the impact that such emissions from shipping in and close to the Arctic regions can have on sea and glacier ice. The recent IPCC Synthesis Report makes clear that rapid, deep and sustained action is needed across all sectors. To remain on or below a 1.5oC warming trajectory, ship climate impacts must be halved by 2030, with full decarbonisation close to 2040. This must include immediate cuts in black carbon emissions from ships, especially from those operating in and near to the Arctic

For more on this story go here

Continue reading

Cargo ship at sea. Photo, Marlin Clarke/Pexels

As International Maritime Organization (IMO) negotiations crucial to climate action by the global shipping sector close today, the Clean Shipping Coalition slammed IMO member states for falling far short of the UN body’s own 2030, 2040 and 2050 climate targets and failing the people and regions most vulnerable to climate change.

April 11, 2025
Photo: Ray McKay/Pexels. 

London, 4 April 2025: As week one of a marathon series of International Maritime Organization (IMO) meetings closes today, all three elements of a successful shipping industry response to the climate crisis are hanging in the balance. Low ambition and delay by IMO member states is in danger of blighting progress on revision of the […]

April 4, 2025
Cargo ship by Photo by Martin Hungerbühler, via Pexels.com

After International Maritime Organization (IMO) member states failed to reach agreement on a draft legal text during this week’s two-day meeting – a text that would have been due for approval during next week’s MEPC 83, the Clean Shipping Coalition called on governments to commit to a fuel standard and greenhouse gas pricing mechanism – a levy – for the shipping industry that would lower emission reductions. Negotiations are expected to continue this week and into next week’s meeting. 

April 2, 2025