Hope for the futureThe enforcement of the new legislation must be stepped up to ensure that it does not pay to cheat.The archaic enforcement method of spot checking bunker delivery notes and fuel samples is cumbersome and not very accurate. The only way to quickly make progress is through direct emissions monitoring in the funnel. That can record exactly what the emission is for the ship at any time and at any location. Such equipment is available, and such a system will remove the bureaucratic paperwork for both crew and enforcement authorities.Automatic and electronic emissions data collection can also be used for measuring CO2emissions which will have to be acted upon. Reliable data about the emissions will be needed to be able to design a proper reward/penalty system. Let us invest in new technology and save us the manual spot checks which are not that reliable anyway.Scrubber systems can remove almost all the SOxin the exhaust gas and other pollutants as well. Such systems are however expensive to retrofit on ships. However, nothing should prevent IMO of making it a requirement to have on all new ships.With the mentioned enforcement problems of the new legislation, perhaps the best way to make progress would be to create incentives for those shipowners/operators who invest in continuous monitoring equipment and scrubbers. Let the incentives be financed by leveraging a small clean air fee on all containers/tons of cargo/vehicles that move through a port. This should preferably be paid by shippers and consignees as the shipowners need to spend their money on upgrading their ships. Let ships with monitoring equipment and scrubbers get an incentive and use the rest of the income for stricter controls the old-fashioned way. This is just one idea. If there is a political will to incentivise the maritime industry, then get the involved parties together and find a solution that benefits the clean ships and penalises the cheaters.Considering it makes socio-economic sense to lower SOxemissions in North Europe and North America, why not in other coastal areas around the world? It would make sense for EU to include all EU coastal areas in a SECA which also could give opportunities for simpler regulation and enforcement.Larger SECAs will make it more feasible for shipowners to invest in scrubber systems. Currently, for ships that perhaps only spend six weeks per year inside a SECA it may make little financial sense to invest in such systems and just pay for more expensive fuel instead. The longer time to be spent in a SECA, the more attractive the investment in a scrubber system becomes. Furthermore, the scrubbers systems only become better and cheaper as increased sales allow for additional research and development spending by the manufacturers.