IMO played a key role in spreading expertise on preparedness and response to marine pollution incidents in the Asia-Pacific region at SPILLCON 2023, held in Brisbane, Australia (11-15 September).
Hundreds of professionals from the international spill response community, private sector, government, and non-governmental organizations came together to discuss challenges, innovation and share spill preparedness and response expertise from around the world. Topics covered included alternate fuels as a pathway to decarbonization of the maritime transport sector, discussions on maintaining preparedness in a continuously evolving pollution risk landscape, innovation in surveillance, monitoring and visualization, and oiled wildlife. The IMO representative delivered a session highlighting the importance of regional and international cooperation in emergency response and preparedness and a case study on the floating storage and offloading unit (FSO) SAFER located off the coast of Yemen. IMO's Integrated Technical Cooperation Programme (ITCP) funded the participation of 17 delegates from Cambodia, Cook Islands, Federal States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Viet Nam.
IMO is a regular contributor and sponsor of the triennial oil pollution prevention, preparedness and response Conference Series, composed of the three international conferences for the Americas (IOSC), Europe (INTERSPILL) and Asia (SPILLCON), respectively. The baton was passed to IOSC, the next in the triennial conference series, to be held in New Orleans in 2024 (which IMO co-sponsors through the Integrated Technical Cooperation programme).
Delivered back-to-back with SPILLCON 2023, IMO, together with SPREP and ARPEL, will deliver a Regional workshop on the use of RETOS tool for Pacific SIDS (15-17 September).