Newsroom Blog
Green challenge
Tuesday 9 February 2010
AS ANYONE who has read a shipping company trading statement over the past year will have realised, the word ‘challenging’ has become a euphemism favoured by chief financial officers looking to downplay the seriousness of their latest losses.
Now the same term has crept into the regulatory sphere, particularly when talking about greenhouse gases.
The uncertainty created by the United Nations climate change summit in December has left shipping rudderless in its search to find ways of reducing its emissions. With no regulatory clarity on the horizon, the high-capital, long-term investment needed to develop serious green ship technology is going to be difficult to justify.
The fact that Copenhagen failed to produce even an ‘aspirational’ set of reduction targets speaks volumes about the complex web of politics beyond the shipping industry’s control and poses a real problem for a sector that needs to make long-term investment decisions.
With some governments eyeing up shipping as a potential cash cow to fund the international approach to tackling climate change, the threat of future financial hits to the industry has not gone away.
While the International Maritime Organization will continue with developing market based instruments, the politics that mired pre-Copenhagen discussions at IMO have not disappeared. Meanwhile, the threat of regional action now looks inevitable and a confusing and costly patchwork of requirements for shipowners beckons.
The shipping industry has been left well and truly challenged.
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Weight checks
By Lloyds List Comment
Tuesday 9 February 2010
SHOULD shippers that provide inaccurate cargo information be named and shamed? Is now the time to start making a public example of those who regularly misdeclare either the contents or weight of a container? It would have been hard to imagine either ocean carriers or terminal operators confronting their customers last year when...
Spotlight on Greece
By David Osler
Monday 8 February 2010
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Collective action
By Lloyds List Comment
Monday 8 February 2010
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Europe's failings
By Tom Leander
Friday 5 February 2010
IT IS hard to tell whether the reluctance of the rich countries in Europe to commit to giving aid to weaker nations in the European Union is simply a case of not wanting to encourage moral hazard or an attempt to push the problem away. With the national deficit in Greece at 13% and Spain, Portugal and Ireland running huge...
Rule B twists and turns
By Lloyds List Comment
Friday 5 February 2010
THE twists and turns of Rule B — B for baffling — could have been written by a modern Charles Dickens working the narrow canyons south of Wall Street. The element that made Rule B so delightful to claimants, lawyers and insurers was the ability to freeze electronic fund transfers until a case was decided. Since most shipping...
Positive side to China
By Lloyds List Comment
Thursday 4 February 2010
THE world is abuzz with news of Chinese confidence, mostly painted in a negative light. Following Google’s stand last month, many foreign companies in China have admitted that they fear industrial espionage is on the rise and some are even contemplating closing shop in China. The nation’s intensified harsh treatment of its...
