Net zero emissions by 2050 – a maritime approach to renewable energy transition
Climate change is having the single most far-reaching and profound impact on the Ocean. The Ocean generates half of the Earth’s oxygen and is the largest carbon sink on the planet – absorbing a quarter of all CO2 emissions and more than 90% of the additional heat from those emissions. Acidification, deoxygenation and warming seas are killing coral reefs and impacting species at a rate too fast for them to adapt. It is estimated that even if we achieve the Paris Agreement target, we will still see a die-off of some 90% of the world’s coral reefs by 2050. That is the best-case scenario. To reduce and avoid further damage to our planet and the Ocean, businesses need to take urgent action to reduce carbon emissions to limit warming to a maximum of 1.5o C.
The maritime shipping industry emits more CO2 than Germany and is the sixth largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions globally. Despite being the most efficient method of cargo transport, as more than 90% of the world’s goods are transported by sea, the industry emits more than 1 billion tonnes of CO2e per year. Maintaining a business-as-usual approach will result in an estimated 250% growth in emissions by 2050, leaving the industry responsible for 18% of global emissions.
Ships are also responsible for a significant share of air pollution. About 15% of premature mortality associated with air pollution from transportation is attributed to shipping. Air pollution from shipping causes roughly 60,000 premature deaths annually—primarily in China, Japan, and India, especially in coastal and urban areas near major ports.
The reason for this double challenge—GHG emissions and air pollution—is the fuel that ships are primarily using: heavy fuel oil (HFO). HFO is a high-carbon, high-sulphur residual substance left over from the process of refining crude oil after the lighter fractions such as kerosene, jet fuel, gasoline and highway diesel have been removed. It looks like what most people know as “tar” and is so thick and viscous at room temperature that it needs to be heated before it can flow well enough to be properly combusted in a shipping engine. While increased energy efficiency efforts and recent regulation such as IMO2020 (a new sulphur cap for HFO) have an important role to play, those alone will be insufficient to reach the 50% GHG reduction target by 2050. The only way this can be achieved is by a rapid energy transition away from fossil fuels towards a new generation of alternative fuels with zero emissions.
Against this backdrop, the Getting to Zero Coalition, an alliance of more than 90 companies within the maritime industry, supported by intergovernmental organizations such as the World Bank, is pursuing the vision of developing and deploying the first commercially viable deep sea zero-emission vessels by 2030. Maersk, the world’s largest container shipping company and a leading member of the Getting to Zero Coalition, has announced the company’s climate plan to make its entire fleet completely carbon neutral by 2050.
Countries are also supporting the vision of zero-emission shipping. The United Kingdom requires all new UK ships ordered from 2025 have zero-emission technologies on board. A group of seven Pacific islands, namely Fiji, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu, started the Pacific Blue Shipping Partnership. These islands have partnered up to fully decarbonize shipping in the Pacific Ocean by the middle of the century.
Future zero-emission vessels could run on a variety of new fuels: hydrogen or ammonia used in combustion engines (for long-distance shipping) and electric batteries or hydrogen-fuel cells (for shorter distances).
To maximize environmental benefits, it will be of utmost importance that the new fuels themselves be produced using renewable energy such as solar, wind or hydro power. For instance, work has just started in Norway to retrofit the first ocean-going vessel powered by ammonia that is “green”, i.e. produced using only renewable energy.