New regulation intensifies demand for decarbonisation

A new and complex IMO regulation-The Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII) – has accelerated the cruise industry’s drive to reduce fuel usage (for both propulsion and hotel functions) and emissions through new technology and other operating efficiencies.

The CII requires owners to demonstrate improvements to a ship’s operational carbon intensity by submitting evidence of its reduction and emissions data on an annual basis to the IMO to enable it to rate a ship’s energy efficiency. The new regulation, which will be implemented next year, has been introduced to support the IMO’s long­term objectives of reducing the carbon intensity of international shipping by 40% by 2030 but few owners are satisfied with its current format.

The CII measures ships’ operational efficiency in grams of CO2 emitted according to deadweight tonnage and nautical miles travelled. Because the CII primarily looks at a ship’s time at sea and concentrates on propulsion efficiency, this unfairly penalises the cruise industry where a cruise ship spends proportionately more time in port and also uses a much higher percentage of its onboard power on hotel-related generation.

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