Decarbonizing Korean Shipping (5/13): EEXI and CII
The earlier parts traced Korea's shipping history; this one turns to the decarbonization rules forcing the change.
Shipping's Invisible Emissions
International shipping carries over 80% of world trade, yet its 2025 emissions of 983 million tonnes (ninth-largest if it were a country) sat outside the Paris Agreement as a mere "memo," so cuts came slowly. The reason: ships cross territorial and international waters, blurring which nation owns the emissions. Even across OECD economies, energy and industry emissions fall steadily while shipping holds flat or edges up.
EEXI and CII
The issue falls under the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The IMO introduced a newbuilding efficiency rule (EEDI) in 2011, but with ships sailing 25 years or more, fleet turnover was slow. So after setting reduction targets in 2018, it extended regulation to existing ships in 2021, creating EEXI and CII, in force from 2023. That same year the IMO adopted net-zero by 2050 (at least 20% by 2030, 70% by 2040).
EEXI is a ship's "certified" economy, CII its "real-world" economy. EEXI regulates the design emissions of ships of 400 GT and up as a floor; fail it, and a ship cannot get its efficiency certificate and may be barred from sailing. CII grades ships of 5,000 GT and up from A to E on a full year's actual emissions, with the bar tightening yearly; three straight years at D, or a single E, can trigger operating limits.
The Limits, and the Real Wave
Both metrics have loopholes. EEXI can be met on paper through slow steaming, CII by lengthening voyages via detours. So the IMO turned to economic tools: charge fossil fuel use and channel the proceeds into costlier green fuels (the Net-Zero Framework). But the Trump administration attacked it as a carbon tax, the talks adjourned last year, and they resume at a critical ES.2 in December.
Even so, the direction is hard to reverse. The EU already enforces FuelEU Maritime, and global shippers are demanding low-carbon fuel. EEXI and CII are only the starting line; a carrier that settles for stopgaps will be swept away by the far larger wave of transition now coming. Is Korean shipping preparing for fuel switching and supply-chain reshaping?
The fifth article in the 13-part series "Decarbonizing Korean Shipping," co-produced by ClimateInFact (CLIF) and PLANiT.