Monitoring the Carbon Footprint of Dry Bulk Shipping in the EU: An Early Assessment of the MRV Regulation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper deals with a topic that is extremely timely and important for sustainable shipping. It is an important voice in the discussion on ways and methods of including shipping in the decarbonisation of transport processes.

I highly appreciate the level of the conducted research, however there are still a few things to think about. To improve the reception of the text, it is worth enriching Section 1 or 2 with a diagram showing two emission control regimes proposed by EC and IMO along with the requirements imposed by each of these institution and key dates (roadmap). It is worth considering the regression functions. In several figures the R² is too low (e.g. R²= 0,11 in figure 1) to draw conclusions about good adjustment of model to the data.

It is worth enriching the conclusions and trying to dispel some additional doubts. The authors focus on the critical assessment of indicators functioning within MRV, but do they see a solution to the identified problem?  Do the authors see the possibility of improving the formulations of EEOI or ISPI to better suit the idea they were design for? How to benchmark the energy efficiency of ships if one indicator is not good enough? According to the authors, is DCS imposed by IMO a better solution than EU MRV?

Editorial remark: In the caption under figure 4 there should be ISPI instead of EEOI.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an updated, practical and realistic paper. I agree with all the questions that are raised from the authors. From my side, I would add some more. For example, I think, under my point of view, that EEDI and EEOI IMO´s equations are not as accurate as they should be. The factors listed in the numerator should be expressed as energy developed by Main, Auxiliaries engines and Boilers no fuel consumption. Neither Emission factor values would be expressed as kg pollutant/Ton of fuel.

But this is not the case, I only go through the options written in the manuscript that I consider to be published after minor corrections .

1.- Please, insert a Lis of acronyms

2.- Lines 215-218, I would add fuel consumption calculated by power developed from each engine. In this case, currents, ocean conditions, weather, etc.. could be included.

3.- From table 4 , please How was the load factor calculated?

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx