The shipping industry faces the cost of complying with a deluge of new rules(issued by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO)). To make matters worse, it is in the middle of a slump caused by too many ships chasing too little trade.  As the deadlines for all these rules approach, shipping bosses are firing off distress flares. Masamichi Morooka, chairman of the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), a lobby group, lamented on March 19th that the cost could run into “hundreds of billions” of dollars. He begged regulators to take into account the dire state of shipping

One of the first big expenses will be for cleaner fuel. Ships used to burn the cheap, unrefined crud, laden with sulphur and other nasties, that is left over when oil is refined. The fine soot that such fuel gives off can cause premature deaths from asthma and heart attacks. So in 2005 the IMO started to limit the sulphur content of maritime fuel, especially in “emission-control areas” along heavily populated coasts in North America and Europe. These limits are set to be tightened drastically,  Such fuels currently cost about 50% more than unrefined “residual” grades…

Shipping firms are also under pressure to cut their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The IMO reckons that ships cause about 2.7% of total man-made emissions, a bit more than planes but a lot less than cars and trucks. Under a convention it has brought into force this year, ships will have to introduce fuel-economy measures with the aim of reducing their emissions by 20% by 2020 and 50% by 2050….

The IMO is also pressing on with planned new rules on cleaning up ships’ ballast water. These may come into effect this year, once enough national governments have signed up for them. A study last year in the Journal of Marine Engineering and Technology* reckoned that around 60,000 ships worldwide would need refitting with one or more cleansing units, costing up to $1.7m each. In that case, shipping firms could be whacked with a bill of the order of $50 billion…

New proposals to make shipping greener, and push it further into the red, keep popping up. This week the European Parliament’s environment committee backed proposals for recycling levies on vessels calling at EU ports. This would pay for safer scrapping of old ships, which can contain asbestos and other toxic materials….

At a conference in Athens recently John Platsidakis, a Greek shipping boss who chairs an association of bulk-cargo operators, grumbled: “We carry 90% of world trade and we emit only 2.7% of the CO2 but still we are treated as if we are acting with indifference to the environment.”…[A]irlines, for example, have lobbied more shrewdly than shipping firms. But then again, the shipping industry is bigger and more fragmented than aviation, making it harder for it to present a united front. Many small, family-owned shipping firms have publicity-shy bosses and lack the sophisticated public-relations machines that giant firms deploy….[T]he ICS seeks to represent the entire global merchant-shipping fleet with just 20 people. The industry’s sluggish lobbying has meant that rules get passed before it has a chance to object to them. And once they are passed, it is much harder to get them changed.

The shipping industry: Sinking under a big green wave, Economist, Mar. 30, 2013, at 69