HAVING ADOPTED the Protocol of 1997 to amend the International
Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, 1973, as modified
by the Protocol of 1978 relating thereto (the 1997 Protocol),
NOTING that regulation 12 of
Annex VI of MARPOL 73/78 prohibits new installations containing ozone-depleting
substances (including halons) and that regulation
II-2/5.3.1 of the International Convention for the Safety of
Life at Sea, 1974, as amended, currently prohibits new installations
of halogenated hydrocarbon systems on all ships,
MINDFUL that these actions will require substitutes for
use in shipboard fire-extinguishing equipment, and that perfluorocarbons
(PFCs) are one of the potential substitutes that may replace halons
in shipboard fire-extinguishing systems,
BEARING IN MIND that there is no known compelling need requiring
the use of PFCs in fire-extinguishing systems used on board surface
vessels,
RECOGNIZING that the atmospheric lifetimes for PFCs range
from 3,200 to 50,000 years and the extremely high global warming potential
of these compounds present warming effects that are essentially irreversible,
RECOGNIZING FURTHER that the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change has acknowledged that PFCs are among the highest
global warming chemicals with extraordinary lifetimes, and has targeted
PFCs for future action,
SEEKING to avoid replacing one environmental problem with
another,
INVITES the Marine Environment Protection Committee and
the Maritime Safety Committee to consider, as a matter of urgency,
any appropriate measures including an immediate moratorium and adoption
of amendments to the relevant instrument concerning the prohibition
of the use of PFCs in shipboard fire-extinguishing systems.