It’s 2046 - shipping reaches Net Zero…
The narrative scripted below is fiction, but is based on current industry debate, trends we see today and certain political opinion.
The year is 2046 and shipping has just declared Net Zero. Looking back, the voyage had the usual delays, breakdowns and alterations of course.
In 2025, during a prolonged cross sector slump in freight rates, it was agreed amongst several climate conscious operators that their tonnage would remain slow steaming to capture double digit emissions reduction. After all, the cost of carbon was still rising – so this made some sense at the time. However, when higher freight rates returned in 2027, this led to a net increase in overall GHGs as owners rushed to the newbuild yards: the thirst for yearlong access to asparagus, avocados and next day delivery was yet to fade. Many other early day experiments failed. Designs for super tankers with onboard carbon capture & storage (CCS) caused a major oil spill when mv Toodeep went aground in the English Channel. Onboard liquid hydrogen handling and storage proved overly challenging and expensive. Political coups and civil unrest across the small number of nations vital to supply of battery components resulted in half-built hulls & legal stand-offs.
By early 2031, and following another year filled with climate disasters and loss of life, it was unanimously accepted that the IMO was ill-equipped to enable punchy decisions to be made. The heavy weight flag registries remained at logger heads. Business continued to influence its decisions; but business was changing because Boards now had more voting members not driven purely by lucre. By 2033, all goods - from fuels to tomatoes - became Emission-Labelled (ELD) – an accomplishment that was celebrated by investors and activists. This also coincided with the end of cash payments for all goods in the developed world; biometric technology had become sufficiently cheap to permit broad adoption. Through advances in AI, governments went further on Making Tax Digital (MTD). Data transparency meant that consumers were either penalised or rewarded depending on what (and where) they purchased their goods. This signified the start of regionalisation, and vast reduction of fuel-thirsty trans-ocean trade. Shipping does remain essential for where oceans still separate critical supply from demand, but >80% of trade patterns are now regional and goods are moved on smaller and highly efficient vessels powered by super-low emission fuels – at levels where off-setting through CCS ashore is sustainable. Although this has resolved the GHG problem, it has led to higher density of vessels and more incidents in certain regional waters - but this new issue is being better managed through advances in technology.
Demand destruction - incentivised by tax policy, consumer choice and investor preference - has since seen domestic economies flourish and many international ones either diversify or collapse. In Europe, we have witnessed sales of apples soar at the expense of avocados. In the US, sofa manufacturers have sprouted up in Denver whilst most in Hangzhou have closed their doors. Diets, lifestyles and expectations have completely changed. Though shipping had only accounted for about 3% of global emissions in 2021, it has enabled the largest emitters to decrease theirs by over 50%.