European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) 20th anniversary high-level conference

European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA)

20th anniversary high-level conference

16 June 2022

Charting EMSA's course for the next 20 years

By Kitack Lim, IMO Secretary-General

Executive Director, Ministers, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.

It is a great pleasure to be with you today to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the European Maritime Safety Agency, which has been very successful to date in many ways.

I applaud you on using this high-level conference to not only celebrate your many achievements but also to look forwards into "Charting EMSA's course for the next 20 years".

I am delighted to have this opportunity to share my thoughts about some possible changes and challenges for international shipping for the next 20 years – and beyond!

Shipping is invaluable to global trade and economic growth, as made abundantly clear during the pandemic. Shipping carries over 80 per cent of world trade, providing the most cost-effective, efficient and clean way of carrying cargo.

It must also be the safest. EMSA was born as a result of two significant shipping losses and many of IMO's safety initiatives have similar origins.

Since shipping is a truly international industry, it must operate within a framework of international standards.

As a specialized UN agency, IMO is shipping's global standard-setting authority, addressing safety, security, efficiency and environmental performance. Its 50 international conventions form a global regulatory framework that is fair and effective, universally adopted and universally implemented.

IMO's measures cover all aspects of international shipping – including ship design, construction, equipment, manning, operation and disposal – to ensure that this vital sector becomes progressively more efficient, environmentally sound, energy efficient, secure – and safe.

EMSA and IMO are united by those overall objectives.

As a regional organization, EMSA makes invaluable contributions to IMO's work, in – just to name a few examples – areas such as Port State Control, casualty investigation, safety policy, ship inspection and environmental monitoring.

These important activities help build IMO's regulatory framework, which is reflected in national and regional legislation all over the world. This relationship between IMO's global regulation and regional implementation, through bodies such as EMSA, can be strong and very effective.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The whole industry is voyaging through substantial changes. We, at IMO, work tirelessly to ensure that these changes and challenges are supported by a constantly enhanced and strengthened regulatory framework.

Our efforts are currently focused on shipping's contribution to the global mission to combat climate change and to move towards a digital future. These are directly relevant to EMSA's priority areas set out in your five-year plan: sustainability, safety, security, simplification and surveillance.

IMO adopted the first mandatory global measures to improve ships' energy efficiency more than a decade ago, in 2011, which have been strengthened constantly.

In 2018, we adopted an initial strategy with a clear vision to phase out GHG emissions from international shipping as soon as possible in this century and by at least 50% by 2050.

Despite the challenges during the pandemic, IMO Member States have worked intensely to move forward on GHG matters and, in 2021, adopted a comprehensive set of measures to achieve the strategy's ambitious goals.

These are real, tangible, mandatory – and global – regulations that will take effect on 1 November this year.

However, in line with the objectives of the 2015 Paris Agreement, the Glasgow Climate Pact adopted during COP 26 and the most recent IPCC climate reports, we must act now to accelerate action to set the path for shipping's decarbonization.

IMO is ready to act.

The upgraded GHG Strategy is set to be adopted in mid-2023 to deliver a strengthened level of ambition, in line with global agreements, to accelerate the reduction of GHG emissions.

IMO is already on its way to make this a reality. IMO Member States have initiated discussions on a maximum carbon-content for marine fuels alongside market-based measures, such as a GHG levy, ETS, feebates or an incentive scheme to encourage development of zero emission vessels.

These measures are designed to incentivize technology development, innovation and R&D into low- and zero carbon fuels and to facilitate a smooth transition towards their use.

I have every confidence that progress will continue to be made at a global level, with the upgraded IMO GHG Strategy setting the path for the way ahead.

The importance of global supply chains became ever more visible during the pandemic, and they will be immensely strengthened by digitalization and automation in shipping.

This technology holds the key to a safer, cleaner, more efficient and sustainable future for shipping through the opportunities it affords to improve fuel and energy use, automation, vessel management, materials and construction.

Innovation in these and many other areas, will lead to new generations of ships and IMO is facilitating this digital revolution while ensuring safety, boosting environmental protection, and managing cyber security risks.

There is no doubt that enhanced digitalization provides new opportunities but we need to do more to embrace data in all our work and decision-making.

For example, we need to analyze statistics and data, in particular related to casualties, so that we can really understand trends and causal factors behind accidents.

I look forward to a closer cooperation with EMSA on this matter in the future to learn from best practices in data analysis.

Both in IMO and here at EMSA, we are aware that the major changes and challenges that lie ahead will have considerable repercussions for the maritime workforce, in particular for seafarers.

They are indispensable for shipping's continued operation and IMO is working continuously to address these challenges so that the green and digital ships of the future can be safe, secure and sociable places for them to work.

Ladies and gentlemen,

we live in a time of fundamental shifts in the social and geopolitical order while the global supply chain and global trade face growing challenges.

But shipping remains unchallenged as the main carrier of our food, raw materials, and finished products so it needs to be supported by a regulatory framework that embraces the highest possible standards. And these must be recognized and applied universally wherever in the world a ship may call.

We need to collaborate to constantly upgrade these standards and raise our ambition, while pursuing decarbonization, digitalization and automation to ensure sustainable shipping.

I am grateful for the strong commitment shown by our European partners to this process and look forward to continuing and strengthening our collaboration.

I hope for your continued support to achieve our common goal of a sustainable future for all.

Thank you.