A summit of more than 100 CEOs and government representatives unanimously agreed to establish an international cross-sectoral collaboration platform to help decarbonise the shipping industry, in London.
The Shaping the Future of Shipping Summit convened to address shipping’s decarbonisation agenda. CEOs and officials agreed to develop a public/private cross-sectoral platform to take forward the development of clean fuels for shipping and global transport.
Attendees confronted critical decarbonisation issues facing the shipping and energy sectors and agreed on an actionable roadmap to tackle them. Convened by the International Chamber of Shipping, the summit outlined several urgent actions that would accelerate the industry’s transition to green fuels and technologies.
Attendees agreed to take forward a proposed ‘Clean Energy Marine Hubs Initiative’ (CEMH), to coordinate and join decarbonisation efforts from ports, shipping companies, and energy firms.
The initiative could be launched as soon as September, at the upcoming Clean Energy Ministerial of 29 energy ministers from leading governments. The global Hubs platform will develop stronger cross-sector collaborations that link the energy sector with the maritime value chain, enabling policy makers and industry stakeholders to quickly unlock clean energy deployment.
The pressing need for a market-based measure (MBM) to help decarbonise shipping via a carbon price on emissions was emphasised in discussions throughout the summit
said ICS.
In 2021, industry groups submitted a proposal to IMO, to bring forward negotiations around a global MBM by several years. Now, representatives of shipping’s value chain have doubled down on the urgent establishment of this measure, viewing it as key to reach the industry’s ambitious decarbonisation goals.
Attendees of the conference also agreed to rapidly prioritise R&D for innovating low and zero-carbon fuels and technologies. In the absence of an IMO led proposal to advance R&D industry leaders committed to take forward unilateral approaches to advance this initiative and explore other forms of collaborative coalitions.
Shipping is estimated to require the entirety of the world’s renewable energy production capacity just to provide the amount of green fuels needed to decarbonise shipping by 2050, shipping is also projected to carry over half of all globally traded green fuels by the same date.
Guy Platten, ICS’s secretary general, commented after the summit:
COP26 acutely highlighted the key roadblock to decarbonisation in shipping was the future fuels conundrum. Energy producers won’t invest without offtakers and shipowners don’t know where to invest if they can’t be sure of fuel supplies. What COP also showed is that there is too much stovepipe thinking
He also added that “the solutions are going to be multi-sectoral and we need to have a much stronger collaboration with energy producers and the entire maritime value chain if we are to break the logjam.”
Moreover, Dan Dorner, Head of Secretariat for the Clean Energy Ministerial, explained that “cross-sectoral and government collaboration will be critical to creating the necessary infrastructure and technologies for a successful energy transition in the coming decades.”
The global port community has a responsibility to offer refuelling hubs for maritime transport and also has a great opportunity to facilitate the trade of green fuels. No one industry can achieve the world’s decarbonisation goals independently; platforms such as this which promise to bring us together will be crucial to making those goals a reality
Patrick Verhoeven Managing Director of the International Association of Ports and Harbours, concluded.
