Postponed a year ago due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and associated lockdown rules promoting social distancing worldwide, an Energy Efficiency Conference and Exhibition (ConfEx) will be held over four days this month to promote an Africa region maritime sector plan of action aimed at contributing to global measures to mitigate against climate change.
Originally scheduled to be held in Durban last June, it is being organised by the Mombasa, Kenya-based Maritime Technology Cooperation Centre (MTCC-Africa). This time it will be held virtually.
The MTCC-Africa is an International Maritime Organization (IMO) and European Commission-funded initiative known as the Global MTCCs Network (GMN), with centres in Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and Pacific regions. Initially funded to the tune of €10 000 000 over four years in 2017, it is geared towards building capacity in the targeted regions for climate mitigation in the world’s maritime shipping industry.
According to the South African Maritime Safety Authority (Samsa), it will be held over four days in two successive weeks this month, the first on March 17 and 18, and thereafter on March 24 and 25. It will be staged within the context of the IMO MARPOL Annex VI which is concerned with the prevention of air pollution by ships.
It advances implementation of global regulations to address the emission of air pollutants from ships and the mandatory energy-efficiency measures aimed at reducing emission of greenhouse gases from international shipping, thereby ensuring that shipping is cleaner and greener.
“Through technical assistance and capacity building, the MTCC project is there to enable developing countries, especially least-developed countries and small-island developing, to effectively implement ship energy-efficiency and emissions-reduction measures, thereby supporting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” according to Samsa.
