Global initiatives to decarbonize maritime transport gain momentum
Sea transportation is among the leaders in the world in terms of environmental pollution and harmful emissions. Maritime transport emits about 940 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year. Shipping accounts for about 2.5% of the world’s annual greenhouse gas emissions. To limit emissions, member states of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the United Nations specialized organization responsible for regulating the shipping industry, adopted an initial strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in April 2018. The 2018 IMO resolution named two main goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from shipping companies. The first is to improve the overall efficiency of the fleet by 40% by 2030, the second is to reduce total annual emissions by at least 50% from 2008 levels by 2050, with emissions reduced to zero or close to zero after 2050. Ultimately, this resolution will bring shipping emissions into line with the terms of the UN Paris Agreement.
The International Maritime Organization (IMO), coalitions of transport service providers and non-governmental organizations around the world continue to step up momentum to accelerate the decarbonization of maritime freight transport and intensify research into sustainable fuels for the energy of the future.
K-Line with wind energy
Japanese transport company Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (K-Line) has taken the next step in introducing wind energy to cargo shipping by joining the non-profit International Wind Energy Shipping Association (IWSA) and citing the new technology as a key point in its emissions reduction strategy.
IWSA is developing wind-powered engines for commercial shipping applications, and K-Line wants to be a good example to help convince the shipping industry that wind power systems can help meet the industry’s CO2 abatement goals, the operator said in a statement.
“By joining IWSA, K-Line is sending a clear message to the industry that wind turbines are a reliable, viable and increasingly attractive solution, especially as fuel prices are rising again, fossil fuel taxes are increasingly likely in the near future, and more expensive alternative fuels will become commercially available over the next decade,” the carrier said.
K-Line is no stranger to wind energy. The company already has plans to roll out the Seawing Kite on its container ships. The Seawing Kite system is an automatic kite mounted on the bow of the boat to increase the pulling power.
Over the course of 2 years, the Japanese Shipping Corporation plans to evaluate the technology, the application of which should significantly reduce the environmental burden associated with the operation of the vessel. The Seawing Kite system is a development of Airseas, a spin-off from Airbus.
The carrier has signed an option for an additional 50 Seawing Kite systems on its ships, which K-Line says can provide up to 30% of the ship’s energy needs.
K-Line’s steps into wind power weren’t the only initiatives announced recently in the transportation industry’s fight against climate change and to reduce CO2 emissions. In May, several new projects were launched and several associations for the development of a low-carbon economy were created, despite the worldwide concern about the COVID-19 pandemic.
GIA takes an innovative approach
In mid-May, an IMO task force called the Global Industry Alliance (GIA) to support low-carbon shipping met and decided to expand the scope of this initiative from reducing CO2 emissions and finding and researching alternative fuels to implementing a ship-port interface. . The new workflow being implemented by GIA will help ports reduce greenhouse gas emissions from ships through a range of measures, such as safe and efficient bunkering of low-carbon alternative fuels and more.
The new initiatives will be a continuation of GIA’s ongoing efforts to ensure that cargo ships arrive at the port on time. Container ships arrive at the port of destination when the port is ready to receive them, thus reducing the waiting time for ships outside the port, and thus reducing the energy consumption and harmful emissions of ships in the port area.
Environmentally friendly fuel from six Danish companies
In another climate change initiative, six Danish companies – Copenhagen Airports, A.P. Møller-Maersk, DSV Panalpina, DFDS, SAS, and Ørsted have formed a partnership to launch a production facility for the production of sustainable fuels for road, sea and air transport in Copenhagen.
According to a joint statement by the Danish companies, it is planned to launch a new plant for the production of hydrogen fuel and biofuel in 2023. When the plant reaches full capacity in 2030, it will be able to supply more than 250,000 tons of clean fuel for buses, trucks, ships and aircraft each year, reducing annual CO2 emissions by 850,000 tons.
“Today, these environmentally friendly fuels are more expensive than fossil fuels,” the joint statement said. — To become competitive with fossil fuels, the production of environmentally friendly fuels must be established on an industrial scale. Manufacturing must follow a cost-cutting path similar to that taken over the past decade by other renewable energy technologies such as wind power and photovoltaic solar power. For example, the cost of offshore wind energy has decreased by 70% in Northern Europe since 2012.”
Getting to Zero Coalition Aims for Zero
The Getting to Zero coalition, a partnership between the Global Maritime Forum, Friends of Ocean Action and the World Economic Forum, was formed at the UN Climate Summit in September 2019 in New York. The goal of the coalition is to have commercially viable, zero-CO2 ships operating along deep sea trade routes by 2030. To achieve the goal of halving emissions by 2050, zero-emission ships need to be added to the global fleet by 2030. It is also necessary to form a plan to provide the industry with clean fuel, the demand for which will grow in the coming decades.
Shipping is considered one of the sectors where it is difficult to achieve emission reductions, and therefore its decarbonization can only be achieved through the cooperation and collective efforts of the maritime, energy, transport and financial segments, with the support of governments and international organizations. Since its inception in September, the Getting to Zero coalition has already brought together more than 100 stakeholders.
In another initiative, P4G, a 12-country partner group of governments, businesses and civil society working to accelerate and advance green growth strategies in developing countries, is partnering with the Getting to Zero coalition to seek investment opportunities in new eco- projects based in emerging economies.
“The decarbonization of shipping will help stimulate investment in large-scale energy projects and ports in developing countries that have access to renewable energy sources that can be converted to zero-carbon fuels, shipping energy, and a number of other areas,” Patrick said. Verhoeven, Managing Director of Policy and Strategy for the International Ports Association, in a joint statement between PG4 and Getting to Zero.
Investments — billions!
A study by UMAS and the Energy Transitions Commission for the Getting to Zero coalition outlines the areas for investment. Investments are made in the modernization of ships, in particular engines and on-board storage, in ship energy-efficient technologies, investments in the production of low-carbon fuels, land-based storage and bunkering infrastructure.
The largest share of investment (about 87%) should be in land-based infrastructure and low-carbon fuel production. Only 13% of the necessary investments are related to the modernization of ships.
The study outlines the total amount of investment needed between 2030 and 2050. to achieve the goal of halving emissions, and this is approximately 1-1.4 trillion US dollars.
Full decarbonization of shipping by 2050 will require an additional investment of around US$400 billion over 20 years, bringing the total to US$1.4-1.9 trillion.
International road freight transportation in Ukraine, as well as international sea freight container transportation, is successfully carried out by M&M Ukraine (head office in Kiev, subdivision in Borispol and Odessa) in all promising and demanded world directions . “M&M Ukraine” provides high-quality and safe cargo transportation from European countries to Ukraine, from Ukraine to Europe, to China and to the USA.
Based onwww.joc.com,www.wind-ship.org,, i>www.p4gpartnerships.org,www.weforum.org and open source data.