The latest edition of our Sustainable Views newsletter
Dear reader,
The technologies that will ultimately be implemented as best able to reduce emissions will depend on a multitude of factors, proof of concept, price, availability, social acceptance, regulations, and, not least, lobbying and industry acceptance or resistance.
Decarbonising the shipping industry will be a tricky task. The UN’s International Maritime Organization agreed a revised greenhouse gas strategy last summer aimed at cutting annual greenhouse gas emissions from shipping by at least 20 per cent by 2030, and by at least 70 per cent by 2040, compared with 2008 levels.
But meeting these targets, as it stands, will rely on the organisation managing to rally countries behind a green fuel standard and a greenhouse gas emissions pricing mechanism. And the jury remains out on which fuel or fuels — ammonia, methanol, biofuels, and/or hydrogen at a later stage — will replace today’s heavy-emitting fuels.
As the talking and the testing continues, emissions from the already highly polluting sector continue to rise. Some campaigners, as Claudia reports, are calling for wind power to be given more attention as a potential solution to help decarbonise shipping.
From a cost-benefit analysis and an environmental perspective, wind propulsion is one of the best retrofit options available for shipowners to reduce their vessels’ emissions, says Pekka Pakkanen, executive vice-president at Finnish maritime software and data services provider Napa.
Technical hurdles remain and there are concerns about the space wind propulsion solutions would take up on cargo ships, where every centimetre of space is important to enhance competitiveness. But Smart Green Shipping founder Diane Gilpin is optimistic for the future of the technology.
Meanwhile, Will Oulton, who recently stepped down as chair of the European Sustainable Investment Forum after eight years at the helm, writes about the massive changes in the world of sustainable finance in the past decade.
Oulton also suggests that while, “in the immediate future, policymakers and practitioners may have little, if any, appetite for new regulations as they grapple with anti-ESG challenges, the current pushback on the merits of sustainable investing is nothing new”.
“Attempts to stymie sustainable investing has happened before and will doubtless happen again — particularly as the value of sustainable investments seems to attract a higher burden of proof than other types of investment strategies,” he writes.
Quoting Francis Bacon (the 17th century statesman not the 20th century painter), who once wrote: “Money is a great servant but a bad master,” Oulton urges investment industry leaders to “reject the politicisation of sustainable investment, and ensure the value and power of capital as a great servant of society and the environment continue to be appreciated and understood”.
Until tomorrow,
Philippa
Philippa Nuttall is the editor of Sustainable Views