Europe’s lawmakers voted today in favour of a 2% mandate for green shipping fuels by 2030. Transport & Environment (T&E) welcomes the world’s first measure to decarbonise shipping fuels, but says much more will be needed to get shipping to zero emissions.
In addition to the 2% mandate, the European Parliament did reduce incentives for fossil gas by introducing stricter GHG targets. “This will shorten the lifetime of LNG as a compliance option, but it will not be enough to stop shipping’s worrying shift to LNG,” warns T&E. However, as Delphine Gozillon, sustainable shipping officer at T&E, concludes “it does signal that there is no long-term future for fossil LNG in shipping.”
On the other hand, the Parliament did not announce a greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction target of 100% in 2050 which would effectively phase-out all greenhouse gas emitting fuels.
This puts the EU’s domestic shipping ambition at odds with its claims to be a global green shipping leader internationally
says T&E.
Earlier, T&E had called on the EU to raise this mandate to at least 6% in 2035. 50 industry organisations and NGOs from all over Europe, including Unilever, Siemens and Alstom have backed this.
The group also called for a removal of the exemption for companies with three ships or less, which would exempt 60% of shipping companies. This was also rejected by the Parliament.
This is the beginning of the end for fossil fuels in Europe’s shipping industry. The green shipping fuel mandate will kickstart the production of hydrogen-based fuels by providing investment security for fuel producers. But 2% will not be enough if we are to stick to 1.5 degrees
Ms. Gozillon stated.
During October, the Transport and Tourism Committee adopted a draft negotiating mandate on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure by 36 votes to 2 and 6 abstentions.
It aims to cut maritime sector greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from ships by 2% as of 2025, 20% as of 2035 and 80% as of 2050 (Commission proposed a 13% and 75% reduction).
This would apply for ships above a gross tonnage of 5000, in principle responsible for 90% of CO2 emissions, to all energy used on board in or between EU ports, and to 50% of energy used on voyages where the departure or arrival port is outside of the EU.
MEPs also set a target of 2% of renewable fuels usage and mandated containerships and passenger ships to use on-shore power supply while at berth at main EU ports as of 2030.
Commenting on EU’s vote, the Clean Arctic Alliance highlighted that “while there is some progress on long-term targets for shipping decarbonisation in the European Parliament’s vote on the FuelEU Maritime Regulation, the regulations fails to protect the Arctic from the impact of shipping black carbon emissions.”
On the same wavelength, ECSA welcomed the progress made on the proposal, but stress that more needs to be done to facilitate the energy transition and the decarbonisation of the industry.
