IMO secretary general Arsenio Dominguez is looking at silver linings after an extraordinary meeting of its Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) last week delayed the adoption of a ground-breaking global levy on greenhouse gas emissions.
Speaking to Seatrade Maritime News at WISTA’s AGM and Conference in Barcelona, Dominguez said it’s easy for critics to judge the IMO’s success based on the unexpected events at MEPC but IMO has over 70 years of improving ship safety, security, and shipping’s green credentials, and remains a strong organisation with a large programme of work that is relevant to the industry.
“It is important for me and for everyone to recognise that last week was not a normal IMO meeting. That’s why I say that we shouldn’t be rated as an organisation in relation to the postponement that took place, but instead on the fact that — like everybody else right now — we are dealing with different changes, different geopolitical situations, and we need to adapt.
“We need to learn from these scenarios, adapt and move forward, and that’s exactly what IMO is doing. Just this Monday, we continue the work on decarbonisation to address some of the concerns that were raised last week, related to how this is going to be implemented, how it’s going to be managed, the administration of the fund, the certification, etc.”
Rather than that work taking place between adoption and entry into force of NZF, the work now takes place before its adoption. Given the contentious geopolitics around the meeting, Dominguez said the result was good.
“Whenever there were comments in the room… the most important thing is that the member states, the delegates, are talking to each other. Those that had different views [were] in the same room, and we’re not going to find the agreements right away, because we need to understand those comments. We need to address them with further discussions, with further data. That is how multilateralism continues to work, and is at the centre of everything that we do at IMO. So again, a silver lining — the member states are talking to each other.”
As a former chair of MEPC, the IMO’s environmental work is a pillar of Dominguez’s term as secretary general. Another topic he has given full support to is diversity in shipping, where progress has been slower than expected.
“The recent IMO-WISTA survey showed us that even though we have more participation and engagement with the survey , the numbers are not reflecting all the effort that has been put into it,” said Dominguez. Awareness of the issue and the survey have increased, but room for improvement remains.
In July, Dominguez presented IMO’s internal gender and diversity strategy to the IMO Council to help the secretariat and member states take action on diversity within their work. Areas of work across IMO such as revision of the STCW convention, decarbonisation, and autonomous ships are all opportunities to attract women and focus on the younger generation, he said.
“Progress is there. We just need to be relentless in not backing down, and whenever there are challenges, just continue to power through with the actions that were taken and demonstrate progress,” said Dominguez.
