Last week, the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) of United Nations’ International Maritime Organization (IMO) agreed which ships are to be covered by the future environmental regulations for voyages in polar areas, The Danish Maritime Authority said.

 

The environmental regulations of the Polar Code

 

An international set of regulations on navigation in polar areas, referred to as the Polar Code, is still at the top of the IMO agenda. The Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) intensively debated the environmental provisions in the Polar Code. The IMO decided, inter alia, that the environmental chapter of the Code is to apply to the same ships as the individual chapters of the MARPOL Convention. This means that the scope of application of the safety and environmental chapters of the Polar Code is not the same since the safety chapter applies to ships covered by the SOLAS Convention where the scope of application is somewhat narrower.