Suchergebnisse

There is a growing concern that the Earth's atmospheric composition is being altered by human activities which can lead to climate change. Policy measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions are on the agenda of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the European Union (EU). Climate Change is an environmental problem and answers have to be sought among robust environmental policies that are often classified in market-based, command-and-control and voluntary instruments. Although there is evidence that many uncertainties surround the climate change phenomenon and the contribution of shipping, shipping is under severe political pressure. The paper presents an overview of the related uncertainties and environmental policies and focuses on emission standards and technology solutions. From a political point of view, it is easier to pass legislation that calls for technological and operational measures and may indeed have a high potential in reducing emissions.

""Formal Safety Assessment"" (FSA) was introduced as a tool to help in the evaluation of new regulations for maritime safety and the protection of the marine environment and is currently, the major risk assessment tool that is being used for policy-making. However, there is not much work done in FSA as regards the protection of the marine environment and especially the prevention of sea pollution. Taking into account that a major harm to the sea is the accidental spillage of oil and by acknowledging that there is no significant work on this matter, this paper attempts a literature review on the issue and comments on alternative approaches. To that effect, prior research on oil spill damage cost assessment is placed within context, and various alternative approaches are presented. This work is also viewed within the framework of recent IMO developments in this area.

This paper reports on recent analysis of oil spill cost data assembled by the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund (IOPCF). Regression analyses of clean-up costs and total costs have been carried out, after taking care to convert to current prices and remove outliers. In the first place, the results of this analysis have been useful in the context of the ongoing discussion within the International Maritime Organization (IMO) on environmental risk evaluation criteria. Furthermore, these results can be useful in estimating the benefit of regulations that deal with the protection of marine environment and oil pollution prevention. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The trend towards a risk based regulatory framework at IMO and within classification societies is expanding while some voices claim that a full ship risk based scantlings design approach can be immediately implementable. This paper attempts to clarify some widely used, but confusing to many, notions such as Risk Based Rulemaking vs. Risk Based Design, and IMO's Goal Based Standards Traditional Approach vs. Safety Level Approach, and the implications of their use, or misuse, to future ship rulemaking, design and safety. The paper elaborates on some identified weaknesses of Formal Safety Assessment and the risk based approach which must be corrected. It further cautions on the over eagerness of some rule makers and designers to drop all prescriptive rule formulations and haphazardly adopt risk based formulations borrowed from other industries which may not be appropriate for ships. A reliable risk based approach involves avoidance to cut corners and thus avoidance on relying on a large number of arbitrary assumptions. To be applied properly, the risk based approach requires a significant amount of future research in order to reliably link from first principles the ship risk model with the desired acceptable Risk or Safety level. © 2007: The Royal Institution of Naval Architects.