[Biofuel] Shipping Emissions Must Be Tackled at COP21 with Advances such as Sail Power | Sail Transport Network

[Darryl McMahon]

http://www.sailtransportnetwork.org/node/956

Shipping Emissions Must Be Tackled at COP21 with Advances such as Sail Power

by Jan Lundberg -- December 9, 2015

The UN Climate Conference in Paris (COP21) is well underway with 
positive momentum to adopt a new climate change agreement. The draft 
Paris agreement calls for parties to keep the global temperature well 
below 2°C (or below 1.5°C if this language is chosen) above 
pre-industrial levels. Each party shows how it will do its part by 
submitting an Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC); 186 
parties are represented so far in INDCs. Unfortunately, though, the 
INDCs fall short of getting us even to 2 °C.


Maritime shipping emissions must be part of the global solution. This 
has been made clear in Paris with significant side events dedicated to 
shipping. Maritime shipping is the most used means of transport around 
the world. About 90% of all international exchanges go through maritime 
shipping. In 2014, about 10 billion tons of cargo were moved by sea.


 Yet the industry remains outdated and flat out dirty, in terms of its 
dependency on fossil fuels and greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions. Shipping 
emissions are projected to increase significantly in the coming decades, 
between 50-250% to 2050, if business-as-usual does not change. (See the 
International Maritime Organization (IMO) “Third IMO GHG Gas Study 
2014.”) Thus, the industry’s current worldwide contribution of GHG at 
about 2.2% will not stay this low for very long.


Section 20 of the draft Paris agreement would give the IMO continued 
power to oversee GHG shipping emissions. The Kyoto Protocol also 
deferred to the IMO for shipping. However, the IMO has thus far failed 
to pursue significant climate change regulations for the shipping 
sector. Shipping needs to adopt smarter and greener ways to carry cargo 
across the world’s seas. It needs to transform from a fossil fuel sector 
to a wind energy sector. If a signed Paris Agreement gives the IMO 
responsibility of reducing GHGs in shipping, the IMO must make this happen.


 “It is not acceptable that a sector [maritime shipping] is increasing 
its emissions when all the world is fighting to reduce their emissions,” 
said Niclas Svenningsen, of the United Nations Framework Convention on 
Climate Change (UNFCCC), at a side event of COP21.


The industry has been late in transforming itself – energy wise. It has 
been grasping at ‘low-hanging fruit’ to achieve small CO2 reductions. 
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) has distracted smart-thinking investors away 
from renewables. Reducing ship-speeds reduces emissions, but this does 
not result in fuel-use transformation. The shipping industry’s 
conservative scenarios hold the unfounded assumption that affordable, 
ample oil will be available for decades. But what is needed is strong 
leadership to steer strategic, long-term thinkers away from dirty fuels 
to clean technologies – especially wind.


It is important to realize that investment projects that happen in the 
shipping sector today are going to stay with us for ten or twenty years 
to come. A ship being built today will likely be in operation for the 
next three decades. But how long can the status quo endure in a 
fast-changing world, that has seen 2015 as the hottest year in human 
memory? A levy on bunker fuels can help, but we need to demand the use 
of the seas’ clean, abundant resource – the wind.


“Shipping needs to turn green,” said Sturla Henriksen, CEO of the 
Norwegian Shipowners’ Association. There is no other choice now but to 
embrace smart innovations and to reduce GHG in shipping. “There is no 
Plan B. We have to reduce emissions,” said Niclas Svenningsen, UNFCCC. 
So why is it that ship designs employing large-scale sail systems still 
look futuristic?


Innovations in sail technology are actually further ahead than most of 
the world realizes. The Ecoliner, a hybrid sailing cargo ship designed 
by Dutch naval architects Dykstra, as part of the EU-funded SAIL 
consortium project, offers massive energy efficiency gains under optimum 
sailing conditions (not using the auxiliary engine).


 B9 Shipping is developing a 100% renewably powered, commercially and 
technically viable sailing hybrid cargo ship to be commercially viable 
today and future-proofed for a 30-year lifespan. “The people who harness 
‘free fuel’ will be the energy tycoons of the future,” said Diane Gilpin 
of B9 and the Smart Green Shipping Alliance in Paris.”


Simultaneously, there is rapid growth in the use of traditional sailing 
ships, with and without engines, moving high-quality, organic products 
to growing niche markets. Significant global reductions in GHG emissions 
will also happen with decreased trade volumes overall. This is 
inevitable due to realities of climate protection and supply constraints 
for easily extracted, lower-sulfur petroleum. Consumers need to begin to 
understand their energy-demands and how much 

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[dwoodard]

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