Cargo ships now have a net-zero goal — but critics say it's not enough
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For the past week in London, the United Nations agency that governs global shipping has been meeting behind closed doors to negotiate a climate strategy for ocean-crossing cargo vessels — the diesel-guzzling behemoths that haul virtually everything we buy and use. Meanwhile, outside the regulator’s headquarters, climate activists wearing mermaid tails and hoisting smoke-spewing ship puppets urged delegates to set their ambitions high.
The IMO’s 175 member countries agreed to set near-term targets for reducing cargo-shipping emissions by at least 20 percent — striving for 30 percent — by 2030, compared to 2008 levels. The strategy also calls for curbing emissions by at least 70 percent — striving for 80 percent — by 2040, reaching net-zero emissions “by or around” 2050 while still “taking into account different national circumstances.”
Countries also agreed to have 5 to 10 percent of shipping’s energy use come from "zero or near-zero" emissions fuels and technologies by 2030.
The climate strategy, which isn’t legally binding, “opens a new chapter towards maritime decarbonization,” IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim said on Friday in a statement.
“At the same time, it is not the end goal,” he added. “It is in many ways a starting point for the work that needs to intensify even more over the years and decades ahead of us.”
The outcome reflects a hard-fought agreement between two broad factions within the maritime organization: those who wanted more aggressive goals and those pushing for clunkily worded caveats.
The other countries in this camp, including Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, had also hoped for a goal of “absolute-zero” emissions by 2050, meaning cargo ships would run on entirely carbon-free sources with no offsetting needed. Proponents say more stringent regulations are needed to jump-start massive and globe-spanning investments in zero-emissions marine fuels and technologies, hardly any of which is available today.
The second camp at this week’s negotiations included China, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Argentina and other large, export-dependent countries. These delegates pushed for fuzzier deadlines and the nod to national circumstances, warning that more stringent rules would hurt their economies by making it more expensive to send commodities such as food, metals and crude oil by ships.
“Every fraction of a degree is of crucial importance,” she added, “and we need to continue to work to decarbonize international shipping in a just and equitable manner as soon as possible.”
“Ultimately, it’s the measures the organization takes to implement the strategy, such as GHG-intensity standards for ships and fuels, as well as economic measures, that will determine how much international shipping contributes to future warming,” he said.
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