Singapore Maritime Week Accelerating Decarbonization Conference - keynote

Singapore Maritime Week

Accelerating Decarbonization Conference, 27 April 2023 

Keynote Address on Sustainability Efforts, by Kitack Lim, Secretary-General, IMO

Ladies and gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure to be here again in Singapore for Maritime week, a very special event in the international shipping calendar.

I wish to thank our host, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA). My personal appreciation goes to Chief Executive Mr. Teo Eng Dih for your continued support of IMO's goals and objectives.

Singapore is a key supporter for IMO's projects that aim to assist targeted Member States, to ensure that no one is left behind.

To facilitate these generous contributions and consolidate our major projects, IMO established the Department for Partnerships and Projects in 2020 to enhance and strengthen partnerships with external stakeholders and donor agencies to tackle some of the major global challenges which impinge on today's maritime world.

This has allowed us to constantly strengthen and expand IMO's long-term projects relating to decarbonization.

One of these major projects is the IMO-Singapore NextGEN initiative on "Green and Efficient Navigation".

As part of this, IMO and Singapore have jointly encouraged action, through the Singapore-IMO NextGEN Connect Challenge.

This challenge invited stakeholders to propose methodologies to develop actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions along a shipping route, on a pilot basis. Later, we will announce the winner of this important award.

Maritime needs innovation such as this. Through trials and pilot projects, we can all learn from and adopt best practices.

IMO stands ready to support such activities. In particular, under the recently launched IMO Future Fuels and Technology Project, concrete pilot projects will be launched, and we look forward to the active involvement of Member States in these pilots.

Ladies and gentlemen,

All who visit Singapore and look out from this beautiful city to the myriad of ships on the horizon cannot fail to understand just how critical shipping is to world trade.

Maritime transport continues to be the most economic and environmentally sustainable mode of transportation for large volumes of cargo.

As the global regulator for shipping, IMO continues to ensure that the maritime sector delivers global trade safely, securely, efficiently, and sustainably.

All stakeholders, from shipowners and operators to flag and port States and to all the support and service companies on which we rely, have a responsibility to embrace the changes and transitions that are underway – decarbonization, alongside digitalization and innovative technology.

And we must all the while ensure that the maritime personnel, and in particular seafarers, are at the centre of this evolution.

But as the whole world unites to fight climate change, we must acknowledge that decarbonization is the biggest challenge facing shipping.

The next months are crucial. We must demonstrate strong leadership providing a global framework for the maritime industry to strive for green shipping and at the same time, we must ensure we leave no one behind.

IMO Member States are currently actively engaged in the process of upgrading the Initial IMO Strategy on Reduction of GHG Emissions from Ships to be adopted this July during MEPC 80.

The revised strategy, with technical and economic measures, will provide the necessary certainty for all stakeholders to invest in future fuels and ship-related technologies, setting the path towards decarbonizing shipping.

Now is the time for IMO Member States to be ambitious in upgrading their vision and levels of ambition and work towards achieving a consensus showing the world that the maritime community is supporting the global efforts to combat climate change.

Ladies and gentlemen,

At this pivotal time in history, shipping is undergoing complex and substantial change. But we are all in this together.

Through effective collaboration and cooperation, we can harness this transition to keep shipping blue and safe; and to make shipping greener, more resilient, more efficient and more sustainable, for the benefit of all humankind.

I am looking forward to today's discussions and exchanges of views, as I am certain they will provide further ideas and inputs towards the future of shipping.

Thank you.