Market-based measures and related matters
Despite improvements in the fuel efficiency of ships,
GHG emissions from maritime transport are projected
to increase rapidly over the coming decades. To
address their growth, market based measures (MBMs)
for the reduction of GHG emissions from international
shipping29 have been proposed to complement
technical and operational measures already adopted.
While discussions on different proposals for possible
MBMs have been ongoing for some years under the
auspices of the IMO, the issue remains one of the
most controversial on the MEPC agenda
One of the main issues in the debate on MBMs
at the IMO has been their impact on developing
countries and especially on remote economies. Worth
mentioning in this context is a recent study (Climate
Strategies et al., 2013) that quantify the economic
impacts of MBMs for 10 case-study economies as well
as globally. According to the study report, the casestudy
economies were selected in the expectation
that they would be relatively highly impacted because
of their remoteness or dependence on international
aviation or maritime transport. The key findings of the
report – reflected here for the purposes of information
only are as follows
(1) Economic impacts of Market Based Measures
(MBMs) for International Shipping and Aviation on
Developing Countries considered in this study, and
globally, are small. The reductions in GDP are less than
0.01 per cent on average and less than 0.2 per cent