The IMO Secretariat has initiated a project aiming to improve the availability of relevant maritime transport costs data for the Pacific SIDS/Pacific Region with a view to facilitating future assessments of the possible impacts on States of potential GHG reduction measures in shipping, including, as appropriate, carbon pricing instruments.
To assist in this, the project aims to establish interim baselines and to initiate the modelling of the impact on Pacific SIDS of a hypothetical increase in transport costs or change in connectivity patterns. Central to the project’s success will be its ability to identify the foundation of a system of continued monitoring and collection of data on maritime transport costs in the Pacific region.
The activity will be implemented by MTCC-Pacific, a centre of expertise established by IMO as part of the Global MTCC Network (GMN) and hosted by the Pacific Community (SPC) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP).
To ensure that the outcomes of the project are transparent and not policy prescriptive, a broad range of organizations, institutions and resources with relevant experience and expertise, including UNCTAD, will be involved.
The main outcome of this project will be a Study on maritime transport costs data in the Pacific region which is to be submitted to the IMO Secretariat by 1 October 2022.
It is also expected that the project will identify and initiate a possible permanent partnership or structure for the ongoing collection and sharing of maritime transport costs data and other relevant statistics for Pacific SIDS. The project is also expected to enhance the understanding of the determinants of maritime freight rates in the Pacific region.
The project is funded by the IMO GHG-TC Trust Fund.
Interested stakeholders are invited to liaise with the IMO Secretariat (ghg@imo.org) for more information.
Read the full article which originally appeared as Article No. 90 (UNCTAD Transport and Trade Facilitation Newsletter N°94 - Second Quarter 2022)