A report by the Energy Transitions Commission (ETC) found that reaching zero emissions from transport, including shipping, is possible by 2050. In order to achieve this, the report calls for a reduction in carbon-intensive products, enhancing energy efficiency, and using decarbonisation technologies.
Namely, it would be possible to decarbonize all the harder-to-abate sectors by 2050, with an overall cost of less than 0.5% of global GDP. In order to make this happen, three sets of actions are needed:
- Limiting demand growth: This will reduce the cost of industrial decarbonization and of heavy-duty transport decarbonization;
- Improving energy efficiency: This will enable early progress in emissions reduction and could reduce decarbonization costs;
- Applying decarbonization technologies: These technologies are vital to achieve zero CO2 emissions from the energy and industrial systems.
Opportunities to reduce demand growth are less in the transport sectors, as freight transport is driven by global economic growth and passenger transport by higher mobility demand in emerging economies.
Nevertheless, a combination of greater logistics efficiency and modal shifts could deliver up to 20% reduction in CO2 emissions.
In shipping, electric engines that use battery or hydrogen energy storage will be key parts in short-distance transport. However, long-distance shipping will likely use ammonia or biodiesels in current engines.
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These fuels will probably be more expensive than today’s fossil fuels, leading decarbonization costs to US$150-350 for shipping. Nonetheless, technological progress and economies of scale could reduce these costs over time.
Th report also notes that shipping will be relatively costly to decarbonize, while changing to battery electric or hydrogen fuel-cell trucks could include minimum costs, due to the energy efficiency advantage of electric engines.
The decarbonization costs could be significantly reduced by three factors:
- Lower renewable energy costs: If zero-carbon electricity was available at US$20/MWh across the world, decarbonizing shipping would decrease by 55% if the additional cost of biofuels or synfuels could be brought down to US$0.30 per litre. Lower renewable energy prices could reduce the total cost to the global economy from 0.45% to 0.24% of global GDP;
- Demand management: More recycling and reuse of materials, along with logistics efficiency and modal shifts in transport sectors, could reduce the decarbonization costs for harder-to abate sectors by 40-45%, bringing them down to 0.15-0.25% of global GDP;
- Future technological advancement: If new technologies show up, the cost of decarbonization could be dramatically reduced. For example, the cost of decarbonizing shipping would be far less if dramatic battery density improvements enabled a greater role for electrification.
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