Setting priorities becomes next task in putting shipping on straight and narrow
 One can safely say that of the causes that enjoy the least support among world populists are transgenderism, environmentalism and communism.
Thus, it was no surprise that first-term President Donald Trump had declared America free of the Paris Climate Accords was greeted with thunderous applause by his supporters.
So they would not be greatly disappointed to learn than the UN agency with the most ambitious climate agenda, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), reports that it is not gaining enough ground decarbonize the world on schedule.
What IMO chief Arsenio Dominguez wants now is a carbon tax on industry worldwide - not only to accelerate the process but to dramatize it. Not just here and there, but everywhere.
“I don’t call it a tax," he said. "I know that is a way of referring to it."
Mr Dominguez said there were multiple scenarios on the table as delegates, from member countries of the IMO, considered rating the carbon reduction from ships, setting, fuel standards and gathering revenue from emissions. Whatever is decided, he said, wouldn’t take effect until 2027, giving countries and companies time to comply.
But getting to the IMO's goal of a 30 per cent reduction of emissions by 2030 will require the immediate implementation of every possibility. Which, he admits, is not likely to happen.
Ultimately, complete decarbonizing of the sector will take an overhaul of shipping fuel, said Mr Dominguez, a point about which industry leaders agree whether they like it or not. Today, most ships run on heavy fuel oil, which releases carbon dioxide along with sulphur, nitrogen and other pollutants.
Much cleaner fuels already exist, and many more are being developed, such as hydrogen, ammonia and biofuels. But they are much more expensive, and exist in quantities insufficient to meet demand.
Currently, the shipping industry is responsible for about three per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Their total emissions are expected to go up sharply in future decades unless major changes are made.
Other parts of the world economy have made strides at decarbonizing, such as the power and ground transportation sectors, thanks to electrification. Comparatively, little has happened in shipping.
Measures such as using satellites to chart routes waste less fuel, cleaning the hulls of ships to reduce friction in the water and slow steaming, which also uses less fuel and pollutes less.
But getting to the IMO's goal of a 30 per cent reduction of emissions by 2030 will require immediate implementation of all these things and many more.
Ultimately, major decarbonizing of the sector will take an overhaul of shipping fuel, a point that industry leaders agree on, again whether they like it or not.
The IMO is being pushed to move toward a carbon tax to be in line with what is already happening in some places, like the European Union.
Starting this year, large ships coming in and out of European ports pay taxes on their carbon dioxide emissions.
Starting in 2026, they will also pay for methane and nitrous oxide emissions, also greenhouse gases.
Some industry leaders hope that a carbon levy from the IMO, which would effectively be the world’s first global tax, could allow shipping companies to simply pay one carbon tax, instead of taxes in multiple jurisdictions.
Still, there is wide disagreement, both among countries and shipping companies, over a tax, how much it should be and what would the revenue be used for.
Shipping companies are ideal as the cutting edge of the environmental movement, which also serves as a major ally in the progressive drive of the Deep State. Shipping is unique in the sense it is politically non-threatening. While it is a major global employer, its workers are unable to form a significant voting bloc to argue for anything it wants or wants to avoid.
The sector has traditionally been bullied by it shore based labour unions, principally longshoreman and railwaymen into commanding the highest unskilled and semi-skilled wages in the world.
Corporately they have sought comfort in economies of scale in the macro sense of utilizing larger ships, jumping from 1,000 TEU to 24,000 TEU over 30 years. At the time the first containerships came into service they were 500 TEU in 1970, about the size of a wartime Liberty ships. While the ships got bigger, the crews got smaller, from 40 to 20. More cost savings were had via containerisation and cargo handling ashore that included gantry cranes which could not only lift containers up, but across the ever widening cellular ships.
Meanwhile shipping companies were gobbling each other up as 30 middling to major ocean carriers whittled themselves down to less than a dozen through mergers and acquisitions with the survivors being Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC), Maersk, CMA CGM, Hapag Lloyd, Cosco, Evergreen and HMM.
While that seemed natural enough, one would have thought that that bureaucratic regulators would have been the bete noire to these supposedly freedom-loving corporations of the high seas. But no. They embraced these intrusive regulations, insisting they be rigorously enforced.
One could see the logic in this because the surviving small fry rivals might well thrive on cheaper but illegal bunker fuel while the corporate giants were compelled to burn costly and difficult to obtain eco fuels.
Other factors intrude in the last year. One can call it woke, the compulsion to adhere to the emotions dictated by the ideological left, to include DEI (diversity, environment, inclusion) and ESG (environment, social, governance). These slogans have become the rage of corporate boardrooms worldwide, the shipping sector has not escaped, though there are signs of serious resistance developing.
While solid gains were made to restore normality to shipping - and indeed, corporate life in President Trump's first term in office, there is still much to do to clean the Augean Stables that are occupied by the Deep State today. |
