04
Jun 21

Bulletin: Looking ahead

Bulletin: Looking ahead

Last weekend we welcomed the return of some warm and sunny weather for the Bank Holiday. As the weather becomes more summer like, now is a good time to look ahead to what is going to be a pivotal few months for the shipping industry.

Next week the Chamber will be hosting the first ever M7 event, bringing together those countries invited to the G7 to a special maritime meeting of international shipping associations. Delegates will be invited to discuss trade issues and green R&D projects to help identify what things are working well and where there could be better collaboration. Joining the delegates from the UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, South Africa, South Korea and the United States will be Guy Platten, Secretary General of the ICS and David Loosely, Secretary General and Chief Executive of BIMCO.

At the IMO next Thursday it’s the start of the Marine Environmental Protection Committee meeting, or MEPC 76. The meeting is scheduled to last for a week and it is a hugely important meeting where the future emissions regulations for the industry will be discussed.

We have been working closely with the UK delegation at the Department for Transport ahead of the meeting. We know there will be tough negotiations over the week but we hope the international community can agree to some sensible, long-term decisions.

In September we have London International Shipping Week and the team at the Chamber will be putting on a range of events, including the launch of a TV news style programme looking at the future of shipping and the role some of our members are playing in reducing emissions. We will also be running events on tonnage tax and the voyage to decarbonisation. More details on these will come in due course.

And towards the end of the year we have COP26 in Glasgow. We are working very closely with the teams at DfT and the Cabinet Office on policy developments and recently shared details of the event the ICS will be hosting. If anyone would like more details on that please get in touch with richard.emsley@ics-shipping.org

Bob