IMO, InfluenceMap go head to head over organizational lobbying

Following a statement from IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim, InfluenceMap Executive Director Dylan Tanner has again called out the International Maritime Organization and industry lobbying groups in the fight for effective, enforceable climate regulations.    London-based non-profit organization InfluenceMap continues to defend its recent report, Corporate Capture of the IMO, which accuses trade industry associations of “aggressively lobbying” the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in an effort to control climate change regulations, despite rebuttals from the trade associations named in the report.
   Several trade bodies, including the World Shipping Council (WSC), International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) and Baltic and International Maritime Council (BIMCO) and now the IMO itself, have refuted the accuracy of the report, which claims IMO leadership has allowed these associations to exert undue influence on environmental shipping regulations.
   “Recent media reports have questioned the transparent, inclusive approach adopted by all stakeholders with an interest in addressing the threat of climate change through the IMO, the global regulator of shipping, and the body most able to deliver uniform, global solutions in the spirit of the 2015 Paris Agreement,” Kitack Lim, secretary-general of the IMO, said in a statement. “Indeed, IMO’s efforts to reduce harmful air emissions from ships spans decades, and continues this week with the second meeting of the Intersessional Working Group on Reduction of GHG Emissions from Ships.”
   Lim noted that the IMO has consultative arrangements 77 non-governmental organizations, which provides it with “a balance that adds considerably to the credibility of the organization’s overall output.”
   However, InfluenceMap Executive Director Dylan Tanner, says that same balance referenced by the IMO “is clearly tilted in the favor of shipping industry interests, who are actively working to oppose meaningful action on climate.”
   Tanner responded in turn to the three organizations that took issue with the report, specifically saying that the concrete proposal for carbon reduction and climate action by the WSC does not include binding sector-wide GHG emissions reduction targets or caps as WCS claimed.
   The WSC “also claims that InfluenceMap is ‘spreading misinformation’ through (correctly) suggesting that the Paris Agreement is ‘legally binding.’ The treaty may not be enforceable, but it contains mostly binding elements, some non-binding measures, and other parts that are more aspirational,” according to Tanner.
   “The shipping industry would perhaps benefit from studying the treaty in greater detail,” he said.
   Tanner also addressed ISC and BIMCO, stating that both organizations “rejected calls in a joint IMO submission to introduce a binding GHG emissions target or cap for shipping, supporting only a voluntary ‘aspirational’ reduction target, reasserting this position in September 2017. Additionally, in 2016 ICS, BIMCO and WSC co-sponsored an IMO policy submission that opposed the introduction of GHG emissions regulations for the shipping industry until 2023, 7 years after the Paris Accord first came into effect and 26 years after the Kyoto Agreement granted the IMO the authority to regulate climate policy for shipping.”
   The IMO is currently holding climate talks and hopes to agree on an “ambitious CO2 pact,” the organization said on Twitter earlier this week.