Climate Change—Challenges and Response Options for the Port Sector

Abstract

Climate change is an established and growing priority environmental issue. This paper investigates the importance of climate change in ports through a research-based survey on data collected from participants at the Greenport Congress in Valencia in 2018. The data for this paper were obtained from the responses of 55 port professionals and environmental specialists that replied to a questionnaire survey during the Congress. Questionnaires were analyzed to identify the opinions and experience of delegates. A collaborative approach involving the free exchange of knowledge and experience between port professionals, industry practitioners and academia is the model most likely to deliver practicable options to the mutual advantage of operators, local communities, regulatory authorities and the environment. Based on the results of this survey, Climate Change occupies the 6th position among top 10 environmental port priorities and Carbon Footprint the 8th position. This reflects the importance of these two issues in the whole set of environmental priorities. Data collection has been identified as the main challenge ports encounter to implement a carbon management program. The need for a common port-sector Carbon Footprint scheme, which would benefit individual port authorities and the port-sector as a whole, was highlighted by the participants.

A Qualitative Analysis of Climate Impacts on Egyptian Ports

“…Also, they provided valuable insights into the importance of energy efficiency, demand response management, and sustainable port operations in saving energy costs [35]. A questionnaire survey among port professionals and environmental specialists in Valencia showed that among the top 10 environmental priorities for ports, Climate Change comes in at 6th, while Carbon Footprint sits at 8th [27]. A survey of 70 maritime sector leaders in Ireland refers to a significant lack of understanding of climate change [7].…”

“…Also, given the limited knowledge of port attitudes toward climate action, 18 Chinese organizations were investigated [26]. In addition, a questionnaire survey among port professionals and environmental specialists in Valencia shed light on the crucial role of climate change in port operations [27].…”

“…To collect the necessary data, a questionnaire survey, interviews, and workshops were implemented by the collaboration of the assigned teams. The questionnaire survey and interview methods are practical tools that were applied in different publications as a valid and trusted tool for investigating the port administration's perception towards the potential hazards of climatic change and their planning strategies [1,7,18,27,30,31]. Also, they could offer an overview of the participants' attitudes about the importance of climate change issues that could affect their workplace, and the presented survey questions are considered a relatively new topic.…”

Performance trends of environmental management in European ports

“…Soil quality and terrestrial habitats are the issues with the lowest percentage of ports monitoring them. Concerning Carbon Footprint, although there has been an increase of interest related to Climate Change issues (as presented in Table 16), monitoring this issue is rather complicated due to the amount of data necessary to gather, the personnel involved and the resources needed (Azarkamand et al, 2020). This could explain the steady trend of this environmental monitoring indicator.…”

Towards Optimized ARMGs’ Low-Carbon Transition Investment Decision Based on Real Options

“…The production and operation activities of ports consume large amounts of energy, which results in serious carbon dioxide emission problems [1]. With the increasingly serious problem of climate change, ports have put forward higher requirements for their emission reduction performance [2,3]. Port equipment emissions are the main source of carbon dioxide emissions in port areas.…”