Summary of the major changes agreed to in the latest Shipping MRV regulation proposal

In November the European Commission agreed to an informal proposal for the regulation on monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of CO2 emissions from maritime transport. This latest agreement had some significant modifications compared to the proposal approved by the EU Commission in April this year.
 
Following is a summary of the major changes agreed to in this latest proposal.
 
Reporting
 

• The regulation would cover only CO2 emissions instead of greenhouse gas emissions.
• Companies would be required to report emissions from vessels while they are at sea as well as at berth (that is, securely moored or anchored in a port falling under the jurisdiction of a Member State).
• Emissions would have to be reported from gas turbines in the ships as well.
• For voyages starting and ending under two different calendar years, the monitoring and reporting data shall be accounted under the first calendar year concerned.

Exemptions

Companies need not report per-voyage information if:
 

• all the ship's voyages during the reporting period either start or end at a port under the jurisdiction of a Member State; and,
• the ship, according to its schedule, performs more than 300 voyages during the reporting period.

Penalty on Non-compliance
 

• If a company fails to comply with the regulations for two or more consecutive years, the competent authority of the Member State of the port of entry may issue an expulsion order. Every Member State shall subsequently refuse entry to the ship.
• The company against whom the order would be issued shall have the right to challenge it in a court.

Monitoring Plan
 

• Companies would be required to check, at least one a year, whether the monitoring methodology can be improved to obtain more accurate results.
• Monitoring plan will include IMO identification number of the ship.
• A combination of the four methods of monitoring can be used, if approved by the verifier, if it enhances the overall accuracy of the measurement.   

Emissions Report
 

• Emissions report will include IMO identification number and identify of the verifier who assessed the report.
• If some data, not related to emissions into the environment, would exceptionally undermine the protection of commercial interest, then that particular data will be represented differently by the Commission during its annual report on maritime emissions. If this is not possible, the data shall not be published.
• For ro-ro ships, cargo carried shall be defined as the number of cargo units (trucks, cars, etc.) or lane-meters multiplied by default values for their weight.
• For container vessels, cargo carried shall be defined as the total weight in tons of the cargo or, failing that, the amount of TEUs multiplied by default values for their weight.
• For tankers, bulk carriers, general cargo ships, refrigerated cargo ships, vehicle carriers and combination carriers, the weight and volume of the cargo carried and the number of passengers carried will be taken into account.
• The commission will publish an annual report on the emissions from maritime transport which would include data related to energy efficiency of maritime transport per size, type of ships, activity, or any other category deemed relevant.
• EU regulations will be changed if there is an international MRV regulation or emission reduction regulation.

The text is to be examined by the ENVI Committee on 3 December. After approval by the Committee, the Council is expected to reach a political agreement at the Environment Council meeting on 17 December, followed by the formal adoption of its common position, which should be transmitted to the Parliament.

The Parliament must vote on the agreed text at one of its plenary meetings scheduled in spring 2015. If the text is voted at the Parliament, it would enter into force on 1 July 2015.

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