The shipping industry’s contribution to solving world climate woes looked shaky Tuesday, as vessel owners, regulators, an advocacy and classification societies spoke in diverging tones on the industry’s readiness.

“The oil industry is not interested in participating to remove (pollutants from the blended bunker entering ships’ tanks),” Wilh. Wilhelmsen Group chief exec, Ingar Skaug told Nor-Shipping conference reporters.

“That has been a difficult process, and it shows the complexity of the issue (of trimming ship emissions),” Skaug said.

He was flanked by International Maritime Organization Secretary General Efthimios Mitropoulos who said the oil industry had nevertheless been “constructive” in regulatory work on blending fuel.

One shipping company boss from outside the industry called efforts to get shipping to comply with emissions-trading schemes, a global carbon-tax or to invest in clean technology by the December 2009 Copenhagen climate summit “naïve” and “counterproductive”.

“We have to absorb many of the costs even though they don’t pay for themselves,” he said.

He warned that no “ultimatum” be given to a European Union now understood to be drafting emissions regulations for shipping should the IMO fail to draft a workable position on carbon-trading or a carbon tax. It did the same for a divided aviation industry.

But just as Canadian oil and gas shipping company Teekay was winning an award for “zero-emissions” tanker technology, the Greek European Commissioner’s office showed concern over the fallout of EU climate policy and Copenhagen.

“We’re afraid (unilateral action by the EU) would lead to a de-flagging avalanche,” said Dimitri Giotakos, the Greek European Commissioner’s shipping expert.

For the oil and gas shipping fleets, including those offshore, IMO agreement on binding performance standards could come next month. The EC hopes a report at “year-end”, or around the time of climate talks, will help it hammer out shipping policy, with or without the IMO.

IMO unity on climate change is “a historical opportunity”, Giotakos said.

Back at the Nor-Shipping conference, classification society Det Norske Veritas told delegates a 15 percent emissions reduction could be obtained by the worldwide shipping fleet in just two to three years if day-to-day operations were sharpened.

“It would require a concerted effort by everyone,” said DNV chief exec Henrik Madsen, adding, “You have to start somewhere."

“Shipping needs to be able to deliver a path to fleet emissions reductions,” he said.

Right now, shipping fleets make up three percent of worldwide emissions, or 900 million tons of carbon dioxide a year. Proposed efficiency models for operations aim to curb 200 MM t of carbon-dioxide.

Tags: Teekay