Destination net zero: shipping’s 2050 ‘moonshot’

Shoot for the moon - even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars” is a popular quote among business leaders and inspirational gurus alike, urging everyone to aim high.

The IMO’s mid-term measures to reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions from international shipping, agreed after much contentious debate at the Marine Environment Protection Committee meeting (MEPC 83) in early April, has inevitably divided opinion over whether the Flight Plan for industry’s own ‘moonshot’ – reaching net zero by around 2050 – is ambitious enough.

Many would have preferred a flat fixed-level carbon tax to have taken effect immediately, rather than a phased reduction of emission targets over an extended timeframe beginning in 2027. And others worry about the complexity of the new measures agreed, and whether the ‘waypoints’ on shipping’s decarbonisation journey will in reality be reached.

But the ‘glass-half-full’ brigade rather welcome the fact that an agreement was reached at all, given the different staunch interest groups among IMO Members – ranging from petrostates jealously guarding their economies to small island nations fearful of extinction through rising sea levels. This view is supported by the fact MEPC 83 had to resort to actual voting, rather than relying on its usual consensus method.

The measures, once adopted at an extraordinary meeting of the MEPC in October as expected, will also represent the first legally required decarbonisation plan of any industry, they point out [see also following story].

So irrespective of how IMO’s net zero mission unfolds in practice, the strategy can still be viewed positively as a case of ‘aiming for the stars...’ – as implied by the front cover of this issue.

Incidentally, it might be worth pointing out that the first biofuel-powered spaceflight launch took place back in 2021. If even rocket science is embracing decarbonisation, surely shipping can do too.