- Scrubber lobby argues against ‘rush to regulate’ by mostly EU countries
- Ospar Convention countries say they’re helping the IMO by ‘leading the way for future collective action’
- Industry and greens split on whether precautionary bans are justified
by Declan Bush
Industry groups have argued European governments and green NGOs are ignoring the science in rushing to ban scrubbers. The governments and NGOs disagree, and it’s unclear where the IMO goes from here.
Kaczmarek: ‘We’re just not happy with the scientific basis of these proposed regulations in this rush to regulate’. Source: Clean Shipping Alliance
THE International Maritime Organization’s scrubber lobby has long argued its technology is safe for the environment. And it’s beginning to tire of making its point.
Green NGOs and governments in northern Europe and Canada have long argued for banning exhaust gas cleaning systems, arguing they simply shift sulphur and other pollutants from the air to the sea. They would rather ships be made to switch to marine gas oil instead.
Industry groups counter that any nasties in scrubber wash water are so diluted as to be harmless.
Both sides have submitted studies and reports arguing their case. The IMO hears the same arguments each year, and looks set to keep doing so.
In June 2025, the 15 mostly EU countries of the Oslo and Paris Convention (Ospar, a marine pollution monitoring group) agreed to ban discharges from open-loop scrubbers in inland and port areas across the north-east Atlantic by July 2027, and from closed-loop scrubbers by January 2029.
The Clean Shipping Alliance, a group of shipping and cruise lines that promote scrubbers, argued Ospar jumped the gun before the science was settled.
“We’re just not happy with the scientific basis of these proposed regulations in this rush to regulate,” CSA chairman Michael Kaczmarek said in an interview.
Capt Kaczmarek, a former US navy commander and Carnival shipbuilding executive, said the only justification
for outright bans was as a precaution.
He said to follow the science, regulators should stick to IMO guidelines and risk assessments before considering restrictions.
“But what we find in almost all of these situations is they don’t do that,” he said.
In a submission to the IMO’s pollution subcommittee, the International Bunker Industry Association (IBIA) said all diesel engine exhaust contained fine and ultrafine particles.
“For large marine diesel engine applications, removal after combustion is the only practical and certain way to achieve significant reductions,” IBIA said.
IBIA said fossil fuels for deepsea shipping would not disappear any time soon, and forcing a swich to lowsulphur fuels would raise costs for consumers.
Liberia pointed to a peer-reviewed study by the Georgia Institute of Technology, MIT and Oldendorff Carriers, which suggested “no likely adverse impacts on receiving water bodies and ecosystems”.
But Canada, a critic of scrubbers, said the same study found using HFO with a scrubber emitted more PM2.5 pollution (particulates small enough to enter the bloodstream and cause health problems) than using MGO.
Canada said modelling by the International Council on Clean Transportation (which it part-funded) found ships caused an estimated 36,000 premature deaths a year because of PM2.5 pollution, going by 2023 data. It
estimated the global health cost at $160bn.
“Reducing the reliance on scrubbers, adding PM abatement measures, or switching to cleaner fuels would be necessary to reduce this impact,” Canada said in a submission.
It called instead for a global 0.1% sulphur cap on health grounds.
“When the stakes are high for industry in general, they will try to find arguments, strong arguments, against any regulation,” Clean Arctic Alliance technical adviser Eelco Leemans told Lloyd’s List.
“That’s exactly what’s happening.”
Leemans said it was not unusual for governments to regulate independently of the IMO; the US did so with its
1990 tanker safety reforms in response to the Exxon Valdez disaster.
Back in June, Ospar said that by harmonising practices in its national jurisdictions, its countries were “complementing the work of the IMO and leading the way for future collective action at global level”.
“Scrubber discharge water is highly toxic and has severe adverse effects on the lower trophic levels in the marine food webs, even in small concentrations,” it said.
There have been plenty of studies submitted to the IMO debate. But the parties disagree on how to measure the potential harm, since ships, currents and marine life all move around, and the studies don’t all measure the same things.
Liberia noted: “There is no widely accepted marine eutrophication and ecotoxicity characterisation model, and existing methodologies involve characterisation factors of high uncertainty, even for stationary pollution sources.”
The IMO’s PPR13 meeting starts on February 9. It will also resume long-running debates on ballast water, biofouling and black carbon.
Originally published at: https://www.lloydslist.com/LL1156227/Industry-tires-of-arguing-about-scrubbers-but-the-debate-is-far-from-over