World Shipping Council (WSC) members, which operate 90% of global container-carrying capacity through AP Moller-Maersk, Cosco Shipping and MSC Mediterranean Shipping, want the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), a UN oversight body, to revisit greenhouse gas emission regulations.

 

The shipping industry is a significant contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions. In 2020, the IMO implemented a global sulphur cap for marine fuels for all ships to use fuel on board with a sulphur content of no more than 0.5% against the previous limit of 3.5% in a step to reduce harmful emissions. Now the IMO’s marine environmental protection committee will meet again in June 2022 to discuss the advancement of its greenhouse-gas emission strategy, which currently establishes a 50% cut in emissions by 2050.

Dry bulk shipping, which includes mineral and metal bulk shipping, accounts for close to a third of the global shipping trade and is one of the major Scope 3 emissions of the industry. The COVID-19 pandemic saw the reliance of global supply chains on “well-oiled” shipping logistics, with cargo stockpiled from ports to upstream operations waiting for available capacity to be exported. The downstream impact on the supply chain (waiting for imported deliveries) emphasised the supply risk criticality of raw materials and goods across the world.

With continued growth in consumer demand and resource availability underpinned by geological distribution, sea transport is set to continue to account for the lion’s share of global trade, currently estimated at around 90%. As a result, the shipping industry will play a pivotal role in global carbon emissions and the path to net-zero.