CO₂ abatement goals for international shipping

Abstract

The Paris Agreement, which entered into force in 2016, sets the ambitious climate change mitigation goal of limiting the global temperature increase to below 2°C and ideally 1.5°C. This puts a severe constraint on the remaining global GHG emissions budget. While international shipping is also a contributor to anthropogenic GHG emissions, and CO 2 in particular, it is not included in the Paris Agreement. This article discusses how a share of a global CO 2 budget over the twenty-first century could be apportioned to international shipping, and, using a range of future trade scenarios, explores the requisite cuts to the CO 2 intensity of shipping. The results demonstrate that, under a wide range of assumptions, existing short-term levers of efficiency must be urgently exploited to achieve mitigation commensurate with that required from the rest of the economy, with virtually full decarbonization of international shipping required as early as before mid-century. Key policy insights. Regulatory action is key to ensuring the international shipping sector's long-term sustainability. . For the shipping industry to deliver mitigation in line with the Paris Agreement, virtually full decarbonization needs to be achieved. . In the near term, immediate and rapid exploitation of available mitigation measures is of critical importance. . Any delay in the transition will increase the risk of stranded assets, or diminish the chances of meeting the Paris Agreement's temperature commitments.

Sustainable Shipping: Levers of Change

“…This decoupling reflects increases in shipping efficiency (with slow steaming, increased size of ships and other operational measures playing a key role rather than technological innovations). There is presently no global mechanism to control CO2 emissions beyond the efficiency standards for new-build ships (Traut et al, 2018). The Kyoto Protocol mandated its parties to work through the IMO for emission reductions from international shipping.…”

“…Virtually full decarbonization will be needed in the longer term that will mean fleet-wide deployment of near-zero carbon ships. This is a great challenge given the very short time frame (Traut et al, 2018). Bouman, Lindstad, Rialland, and Strømman (2017) review around 150 studies to provide a comprehensive overview of CO2 emissions reduction potentials and measures published in the literature and find that emissions can be reduced by more than 75% based on current technologies (and through a combination of the proposed measures) by 2050.…”

Global strategy gone astray: Maersk's big box boats and the world shipping industry

“…Maersk operates in an industry which is impacted by strict regulatory standards (Tang & Sun, ), complex value chains (Gereffi, ; Jensen et al, ), emission problems, and greenhouse gases (Chen, Yip, & Mou, ; Fenton, ; Horvath, Fasihi, & Breyer, ; Kim & Seo, ; Pierre, Francesco, & Theo, ; Rahim, Islam, & Kuruppu, ; The Economist, , ; Traut et al, ; Wan, Makhloufi, Chen, & Tang, ). Carbon emission standards and greenhouse gases are particularly important when formulating long‐term global strategies (Chang & Huang, ; Chen, Fei, & Wan, ; Shrivastava & Busch, ).…”

“…Operational disruptions and labor unions can equally impact the shipping industry and its billions of dollars of operations (Chen et al, ; Corbett & Winebrake, ; Fenton, ; Horvath et al, ; Kopela, ; Milne, , ; Parviainen, Lehikoinen, Kuikka, & Haapasaari, ; Pettit, Wells, Haider, & Abouarghoub, ; The Economist, ; Traut et al, ; Wan et al, ). Networks and sourcing remain critical to the global shipping and container industry because of corporate efficiencies and timely operations (Li, Xu, & Shi, ; Lorange & Fjeldstad, ; Puranam, Gulati, & Bhattacharya, ).…”

Decarbonising the critical sectors of aviation, shipping, road freight and industry to limit warming to 1.5–2°C

“…The shipping sector also expects significant growth in global demand (Lee, 2017). Energy efficiency improvements to ships are expected to bring some gains across the fleet but low-carbon shipping fuels are currently either not technologically advanced enough or not affordable at scale (Smith et al, 2015;Traut et al, 2018).…”