China has stepped up its efforts to reduce shipping emissions with its first ever rules on national standards, to be implemented in two stages.
The ministry of environment and the general administration of quality supervision have issued new regulations, which will affect the 172,600 ships operating in inland rivers and Chinese waters.
China’s new standards aim to cut emissions of greenhouse gas and other particulate matter from ships with an engine capacity of over 37KW, Chinese media outfit Caixin reports.
In the first stage of the scheme, shipowners will be required to cut emissions of PM10 and PM2.5 by around 70% over the next three years.
To achieve that, the companies would have to switch to low-sulphur fuel, as many of them have already done due to other international emission regulations.
Later on, shipowners would be required to cut another 40% of harmful emissions from 2020 to 2022.
