As Carnival Corporation’s first ships of the season arrive in the Arctic, an international coalition of environmental groups has joined together to call on the cruise giant to stop using one of the world’s cheapest and dirtiest fossil fuels — heavy fuel oil — on ships traveling in fragile Arctic and sub-Arctic waters. The petition is at cleanupcarnival.com and will be delivered to Carnival Corporation CEO Arnold Donald at the company’s headquarters.
Europe has already spent half a billion US dollars on natural gas infrastructure for its shipping sector in order to comply with an EU law – and continuing its roll-out is likely to cost governments and investors $22 billion by 2050, a new study has found. Liquified natural gas (LNG) will reduce shipping emissions by just 6%, at most, compared to the replaced diesel fuel, the research by the UMAS consultancy shows.
In light of the recently adopted initial IMO strategy on reduction of GHG emissions and the Paris agreement, there is a need to better understand the potential market for LNG as a marine fuel, bunkering infrastructure investments required and associated risks in the context of shipping GHG reduction. This report attempts to assess the prospective future public and private financial investments by EU member states into LNG port/bunkering infrastructure consistent with EU plans to foster the widespread uptake of LNG as a means of decarbonising the shipping sector up to 2050. EU member states are mandated to set up LNG port infrastructure under the 2014 Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Directive.
Rolling out liquified natural gas (LNG) infrastructure for shipping in Europe would cost $22 billion and deliver, at best, a 6% reduction in ship greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 compared to the replaced diesel, a new independent study for Transport & Environment (T&E) by the UMAS consultancy finds.[1] To date Europe has spent half a billion US dollars on LNG infrastructure for refuelling ships.
As delegates fly and equipment is shipped to another climate conference in Bonn, the question of who is responsible for the resulting emissions arises. The conventional wisdom is that they are covered not by the Paris agreement but by the two UN agencies which were established to regulate these sectors – the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the International Maritime Organisation (IMO). Three years ago this may have made sense. Until the Paris agreement was finalised at the end of 2015, the major climate agreement in force was the Kyoto Protocol which tasked developed countries to work through ICAO and IMO to cut emissions.
As the rule book for the Paris Agreement is finalised, T&E produces a paper which proposes the full inclusion of emissions from international shipping and aviation in national climate targets, known under the Paris Agreement as nationally determined contributions (NDCs). States should pursue decarbonisation of these sectors through a combination of measures adopted at international and national level.
Sustained pressure on governments to regulate the shipping sector’s climate impact has finally resulted in a pledge to require international shipping to at least halve its greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. However, states meeting at the International Maritime Organisation last month made no progress on agreeing a roadmap to devise the measures needed to implement immediate emissions cuts. T&E said it's now up to Europe and its climate allies to get things moving.
Statement from Clean Shipping CoalitionToday’s commitment by governments to require international shipping to decarbonise and at least halve its greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 is a welcome and potentially game changing development, the Clean Shipping Coalition (CSC) has said. But the lack of any clear plan of action to deliver the emissions reductions, including urgently needed short-term measures, is a major concern, according to the group of NGOs[1] with observer status at the UN’s International Maritime Organisation (IMO).