Shipping sector proposes emissions busting research programme

International maritime transport carries around 90 per cent of global trade and is currently responsible for approximately two percent of the world’s anthropogenic CO2 emissions.

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Shipping’s global regulator, the UN International Maritime Organization (IMO), has targeted an absolute cut in the sector’s total greenhouse gas emissions of at least 50 per cent by 2050, regardless of trade growth, with full decarbonisation shortly after.

The proposal - which can be read in full here - hopes to help meet these ambitious targets by attracting funding from shipping companies of around $5bn over a 10-year period. This funding will be used too accelerate the development of new zero-carbon technologies and propulsion systems, such as green hydrogen and ammonia, fuel cells, batteries and synthetic fuels produced from renewable energy sources.

These do not yet exist in a form or scale that can be applied to large commercial ships, especially those engaged in transoceanic voyages and which are currently dependent on fossil fuels.