Green Shipping Program Makes Waves At COP27 Global Climate Meeting
As part of the COP27 global climate meeting at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt (the acronym stands for “conference of the parties”) that took place November 6-18, Special Presidential Envoy John Kerry and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, who co-chair the Green Shipping Challenge, revealed more than 40 announcements by ports, maritime organizations and partner countries to decarbonize shipping. Initiatives include green shipping corridors in the Gulf of Mexico, Los Angeles-to-Shanghai and Long Beach-to-Singapore. The Port of Seattle announced, “The Alaska British Columbia Washington Green Cruise Corridor is Underway.”
The Green Shipping Challenge, announced in June, encourages countries, ports and companies to come forward with concrete announcements that will help put the shipping sector on a pathway to align with the goal to limit global temperature rise.
Guidance documents published by the U.S. included “Facilitating Green Shipping Corridors Worldwide,” “Facilitating U.S. Green Shipping Corridors” and “Creating a U.S. National Action Plan for Maritime Decarbonization.”
The maritime shipping industry, which carries about 90 percent of global trade, is calculated to produce as much emissions as all of America’s coal plants combined. Maritime shipping is currently responsible for about 3 percent of global carbon emissions. But as global trade increases, the sector could rise to 17 percent of global emissions by 2050.
The ports of Los Angeles and Shanghai announced a partnership this year to create the world’s first trans-Pacific green shipping corridor. On the retail side, 19 major retailers have signed onto the Cargo Owners for Zero Emission Vessels (coZEV) initiative, aiming to use their aggregate demand to accelerate shipping decarbonization progress. Port cities like Los Angeles and Minneapolis have passed ‘Ship it Zero’ resolutions targeting zero-emissions shipping by 2030.
For further details on these announcements, including announcement abstracts, visit www.greenshippingchallenge.org.
