A new paper published this week calls for a ‘radical rethink’ of shipping companies’ emissions reduction strategies and vessel design so that ‘hyper energy-efficiency’ is built in at the outset.
‘Radical rethink’ on ship design and emission reduction strategies
Summarising the paper’s key recommendations on LinkedIn, one of the authors, Simon Bullock from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester, said that shipping needs to:
- ‘focus on using less fuel, not just less fuel’ – by means such as retrofitting wind-assist technologies, slower speeds, route optimisation, energy efficiency and shore power;
- ‘find time for energy efficiency policy’ – by ‘ratcheting up’ the ambition of the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Carbon Intensity Indicator and tightening up enforcement mechanisms;
- ‘rethink organisational climate change strategies’ – and Bullock suggested that ‘instead of focussing on a net zero goal by some distant date like 2050, shipping organisations should set a cumulative emissions budget for their operations, and plan emissions reductions strategies to stay within this budget’;
- ‘change mind-sets on new ship design’ – so ‘instead of thinking about using old vessel designs based around diesel engines, with some wind and energy efficiency bolted on’, Bullock called for a ‘radical rethink’ where ships are ‘designed first to be hyper energy-efficient, and primarily propelled by zero-GHG power cells, wind and batteries’.
Authored by Simon Bullock, Alice Larkin (also from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research) and Jonathan Köhler (from the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, Karlsruhe), Beyond fuel: the case for a wider perspective on shipping and climate change was published on Tuesday (7 January) on the website of Taylor Francis’ Climate Policy journal. Click here to access.
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Source: Bunkerspot
