Over the weekend, it was time for the key players of the maritime industry – ship owners, port authorities and others – to meet in Monaco for the Blue Economy and Finance Forum, one of the many special events held on the sidelines of the June 9-13 United Nations Ocean Conference. The key goal of the meeting was to come up with a plan on how to decarbonise maritime transport. Because while the UN summit focuses on protecting the oceans, the many ships that cross them are also a big part of the problem.
Today, the shipping sector accounts for around 3 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions – almost the same amount as the aviation industry. In Europe, it is even worse, and accounts for 14.2 percent of transport-related greenhouse gases, and about 4 percent of all emissions. The reason for this is that most ships are powered by heavy fuel oil, a dirty by-product of oil refining and one of the worst offenders when it comes to pollution and greenhouse gases.
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Although international measures have helped reduce emissions for individual ships in the past few years, the growing number of freight vessels – the biggest polluters – means that total emissions still continue to climb.
Net-zero by 2050: a huge challenge
To come to terms with this, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has set an ambitious target for the shipping industry of net-zero emissions by 2050.
It is a huge challenge. “Shipping is one of the most difficult sectors to decarbonise,” said Pierre Marty, a maritime transport expert and lecturer at the French engineering school Centrale Nantes. “For cars, the solution came quickly with the development of electric vehicles and batteries. For planes, the industry immediately went for synthetic kerosene. But it’s harder for the shipping sector because there is no one-size-fits-all solution,” he said.
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From leisure yachts to bulk carriers and container ships, they all have different needs depending on their size, the distance they travel and how many port stops they do. “What works for one ship might be useless for another,” Marty said, but noted they all have one common challenge: “to meet high energy demands in the often limited space on board”.
To make a real difference, he said, the focus needs to be on larger vessels. Although they only make up 25 percent of the global fleet, container ships, bulk carriers, LNG and chemical tankers account for around 80 percent of maritime CO2 emissions. They also often travel longer distances and use more energy.
Electric ships?
Among the many solutions that have been studied in recent years, electrification is one of the most promising so far. As with cars, it would involve equipping a ship with a battery that would be recharged when docked in port.
“This solution has already been adopted by some leisure boats and smaller container ships,” Fanny Pointet, head of maritime transport at the NGO Transport and Environment, said. “But it’s not at all adapted to long-distance vessels. You can’t recharge batteries in the middle of the ocean,” she said.
“An intermediary and alternative solution would be to use the batteries just for moving in and out of ports,” she suggested. “This would not only help reduce emissions, but also lower air pollution.” British-owned P&O Ferries is one of the companies that has already announced it is equipping its Dover-Calais ferries with hybrid engines for this purpose.
Biofuels, LNG and synthetic fuels
Another option is for vessels to switch to alternative fuels like biomethanol. In September, Danish shipping giant Maersk surprised the industry by presenting a 32,000-ton container ship (capable of carrying 2,100 containers) powered by biomethanol from forestry and agricultural waste.
“But again, this isn’t scalable in the long term because we don’t have enough biomass to meet global demand,” Pointet remarked.
Some civilian actors have instead turned to liquefied natural gas (LNG), but that, too, has its consequences. LNG is mostly made up of methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas, and the European Environment Agency and the European Maritime Safety Agency have both warned of the rise in methane emissions because of the sector’s increased use of LNG.
“That leaves green hydrogen and synthetic fuels, which are widely seen as the most sustainable solutions,” Pointet said. But, Marty added, “these [technologies] are in between development and commercialisation at the moment. They are not mature enough yet, and therefore very expensive.”
Shapes, speed and AI
Aside from turning to greener fuels, another key lever is to make ships more energy efficient in and of themselves.
This is where ship design would come in, with designers potentially equipping vessels with sails, propulsion-enhanced propellers and optimising their hull shapes.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can also help make the industry greener.
“With AI, it is possible to plot routes that would require the least energy by taking winds and currents into account,” Pointet said.
Another point of discussion is reducing engine power and speed limits. One recent study showed that by just lowering average global speeds by 10 percent, CO2 emissions would be reduced by 13 percent. It would also halve the risk of whale collisions and slash underwater noise by 42 percent.
“In the end, the ship of the future will most likely combine a bit of everything; hybrid engines, better hull designs and alternative fuels – all adapted to the specific needs of each vessel,” Pointet said.
And if the ships advance, so will the ports that host them. “The priority here is electrification in ports,” Pointet said. “Because even when ships are docked, many of them, like passenger ships, often need to keep their engines running to maintain services onboard.”
The massive cost of going green
But, both experts concluded, massive investments – to the tune of between $8 billion and $28 billion (€7.5 billion and €26 billion) a year – are needed until 2050 to embark on this green maritime revolution . And that is without counting the infrastructure that would be needed to make and distribute green fuels.
To anticipate these massive costs, some 100 delegations brought together by the IMO in April agreed to create a global carbon pricing mechanism. According to the plan, all ships will as of 2028 have to meet CO2 emissions quotas by using cleaner fuels. Those who exceed the limits will be fined hundreds of euros per ton of CO2 emitted.
According to researchers working at the shipping and ocean transport department at the University College of London, this measure alone could generate between $30-40 billion in revenues by 2030.
But, Pointet warned, exemptions of various kinds could undermine the measure's impact. “And there are still many other questions pending, especially [regarding] what kind of fuels will qualify as clean energy.”
Before going into effect, the carbon pricing mechanism must be approved in a second IMO vote scheduled for October. That means that the industry heavyweights and oil-rich nations opposing the plan still have time to try to sink the deal.
This article was adapted from the original in French by Louise Nordstrom.
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