Dear Editor,

I would like to comment on the Bunkerworld article 'Bunker conference to vote on reducing GHG emissions '.

Why should a bunker supplier vote for an Emission Trading Scheme and or a Levy on bunker fuels for a GHG compensation fund ?

Both of them will give an extra substantial workload, administrative and financial burden for the supplier, whom do not know how much emission pollution is caused by a vessel they have supplied.

So in case an ETS or Levy will be in place, then the costs and administration for this have to be for the account of the emission polluter, thus the owner of the vessel.

This due to the fact that he (the ship owner) should know exactly the amount of fuel the vessel is consuming on her voyage, and therefore should be responsible for all costs and administrative consequences involved in the emission the vessel creates.    

But one should not forget the most important things:  Shipping is still the cleanest way of transportation worldwide, by accepting a ETS and or Levy, the total exploitation costs for shipping will become much higher and can/will cause a shift from marine transportation to roads, and this will create even more emissions, so there will be no reduction of emissions but only a severe increase of emissions.

A total change from residual fuels (fuel oil) to distillates for seagoing vessels will not severely lower the CO2 emissions.  This is due to the refinery process to make more distillates (also we must ask if this is possible worldwide) which will create more CO2  emissions by refineries.    

The only way to reduce emissions from the shipping industry is to set actual emission targets for all engines on seagoing vessels (like on cars and EU inland shipping) and not by some kind of financial paper trade.

So one should have a very good think about the effective way to lower emissions from the shipping industry.