According to Transport & Environment (T&E) overall EU shipping emissions fell slightly in 2023 as a result of a fall in trade, however containerships are the most polluting ships in Europe.
T&E broke down the EU’s latest MRV data to show the trends in European shipping. Recent improvements in technology for ship design have led to slightly improved technical efficiency in new ships. But the real world performance of container shipping has not increased. Despite improvements in ‘technical efficiency’, EU ships on average are not more efficient in the real world. Among other things, this may be down to sailing faster.
Furthermore, a fall in trade 2023 compared to 2022 meant that calls at European ports fell. Data shows that containerships were responsible for a big chunk of Europe’s shipping emissions.
Oil tankers and LNG carriers moving fossil fuels around were also responsible for a big slice of shipping emissions while MSC continues to be Europe’s biggest shipping polluter.
