Will IMO acknowledge carbon capture’s potential in reducing a ship’s carbon intensity?

At first sight, carbon capture and storage (CCS) seems an obvious factor to take into account when calculating a ship’s Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII): it reduces a ship’s carbon emissions and thus its carbon intensity. But it is not currently included in the calculation, although momentum is building for that to be reviewed and IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee has it on its agenda.

CII came into effect on 1 January 2023 to provide a measure of a ship’s efficiency in terms of its emitted CO₂ per cargo-carrying mile, using fuel consumption as the main parameter for calculating how much CO₂ is emitted. The notion that there could be a technology that retains some – perhaps most – of those emissions onboard, was not taken into account.