Revised Marpol Annex VI effects on Northern European shortsea shipping

Abstract

After an increasing focus towards the adverse effects caused by air emissions from the shipping industry IMO decided to implement stricter environmental regulations towards the shipping industry. These regulations were adopted in the revised MARPOL Annex VI, which concerns these matters. After the revision there has been some criticism towards the new regulations, especially from some of the north European liner firms claiming that they will face unsustainable cost effects, while other firms commend the new regulations. This thesis is divided in to five parts where, part one presents an introduction for the reader, in order to give information on the basic relevant background in the shipping industry concerning the thesis, as well as the aims and objective of the thesis. The second part includes the theoretical background needed to understand the basic elements in trade theory and microeconomic theory, in order to further explain transport economics, which is introduced in part three. Part four will be devoted to study and analyze the effects of Annex VI on the north European short sea shipping industry. Part five is dedicated to a short discussion regarding the findings and research methods.