Low Carbon Shipping Conference , London 2013 1 Monitoring shipping emissions via AIS data ? Certainly

While it is widely accepted that the shipping sector needs to work towards controlling its greenhouse gas emissions the quantity of these emissions is not exactly known. Various methods for estimating CO2 emissions from shipping in particular exist but they are associated with large uncertainties; estimates from different methods often disagree; and many methods can only produce estimates for a fixed point in time, typically in the past. Deriving shipping emissions from Automatic Identification System (AIS) data allows for nearly continuous monitoring, with very little time lag, based on actual ship movements, implying that the method is sensitive to measures aimed at reducing fuel burn, such as slow steaming. The key issue therefore is the feasibility and accuracy of the method. Comparing estimates from AIS data with the fuel burn as recorded in the noon reports of a sample fleet of 13 container and multi-purpose cargo ships, representing three different size and type categories, preliminary results demonstrate the feasibility of the method. The 13-member sample is used to calibrate the fuel consumption formula. Uncertainty is appraised in relation to the methods currently in use. Results indicate that the uncertainty of an aggregate estimate derived from a global data set will be smaller than that of the most authoritative estimates to date.