Organisation For Economic Cooperation And Development News

BIMCO, the largest of the international shipping associations representing shipowners, has proposed that the Fourth International Maritime Organization (IMO) Greenhouse Gas Study does not include unrealistically high gross domestic product (GDP) growth projections to predict future transport demand - and thereby emissions - of the shipping industry.“It is imperative that the industry – and the world – base discussions and actions to reduce emissions from shipping on credible and realistic projections. If not, we risk making the wrong decisions and spending resources ineffectively,” says Lars Robert Pedersen, BIMCO Deputy Secretary General.BIMCO…

For experts in the field of ocean mapping it is no small irony that we know more about the surfaces of the Moon and Mars than we do about our planet's sea floor."Can you imagine operating on the land without a map, or doing anything without a map?" asked Larry Mayer, director of the U.S.-based Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping, a research body that trains hydrographers and develops tools for mapping."We depend on having that knowledge of what's around us - and the same is true for the ocean…

Using data collected from underwater drones, merchant ships, fishing boats and even explorers, a new scientific project aims to map the ocean floor by 2030 and solve one of the world’s enduring mysteries.With 190 million square km (73 million square miles) of water - or about 93 percent of the world's oceans with a depth of over 200 meters (650 feet) - yet to be charted, the initiative is ambitious.Satinder Bindra, director of the Seabed 2030 project, said the work can be completed within the period and will shed light on everything from tsunami wave patterns to pollution…

Signs are emerging that a downturn in the United States and China, the world's two biggest economies, may have bottomed out, the OECD's monthly leading indicator showed on Wednesday. The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said its leading indicator (CLI) for the United States improved to 98.95 in April from 98.93 in March, the first increase in the reading since July 2014. The indicator, meant to flag early signals of turning points in economic activity, remained below the long-term average of 100, however.

Global distillate markets remain heavily oversupplied but the glut will not clear unless the world economy avoids recession and there is a renewed acceleration in freight demand. Recent data have been mixed. The consumer side of the U.S. economy appears to be strong but the industrial side is still struggling, and in the rest of the world growth appears to be slowing. U.S. freight movements picked up at the start of the year but demand for moving manufactured products and raw materials across the country remains sluggish. Combined freight movements by road, rail, barge, pipeline and aircraft increased in December and January, the first time freight has increased for two consecutive months since November 2014 (http://tmsnrt.rs/1pa8DbM).

International freight volumes will grow fourfold by 2050 while the average length of haul will increase by 12 percent over that time, trends that will cause a spike in global carbon emissions unless corrective action is taken. An Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) sector study presented at the International Transport Forum (ITF) forecasts that freight transport emissions will grow 286 per cent on average by the middle of the century as changing trade patterns ensure larger volumes of goods travel even longer distances. The sharp increase in emissions dwarfs the predicted 30 to 110 percent increase in surface passenger transport emissions.

First Financing Arrangement of its kind between a Greece-Based Shipping Company and Japanese Governmental Financial Institutions Safe Bulkers, Inc. (NYSE: SB), an international provider of marine drybulk transportation services, announced today that it has entered into three credit agreements with Japanese governmental financial institutions amounting to US $122.4 million to finance the acquisition of three Japanese Post-Panamax class newbuild vessels. The previously-announced…