Stine Jacobsen

COPENHAGEN, (Reuters) – The shipping sector is likely to increase its greenhouse gas emissions by about a fifth in 2050 if it does not take action such as a fuel carbon levy. This is according to new industry research.

Global shipping is responsible for almost 3% of global CO2 emissions. This sector has been under increasing scrutiny and it’s being urged to be cleaner.

Bo Cerup-Simonsen is the head of Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping. His research was published on Monday.

Cerup Simonsen said that shipping would not do beyond the “normal good practices” and follow the IPCC’s path.

He referred to a landmark report https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/un-sounds-clarion-call-over-irreversible-climate-impacts-by-humans-2021-08-09 by the U.N. climate panel published in August, which warned that global warming is dangerously close to spiralling out of control.

He said that decarbonisation would be feasible over the next 30 years if there is action taken, such as a global carbon tax on shipping fuels. This will ensure low and zero carbon fuels are economically viable, and more competitive with fossil fuels.

In September, leading shipping organizations proposed a worldwide levy on carbon emissions by ships in an effort to speed up industry efforts to be greener. They submitted a proposal for the UN’s shipping agency the International Maritime Organization.

According to the Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Center for Zero Carbon Shipping, such a tax could initially be implemented at $50 per ton CO2. The revenue will then go to the first-movers of the industry in order to encourage research and development for alternative fuels.

“You then have 99% (of the shipping industry) running on fossil fuel and they are paying for the 1% that are starting to run on the green fuels,” Cerup-Simonsen said.

According to the report, the centre suggests that the levy might be increased gradually to $150 by 2050.

Funded by the shipping company A.P., Copenhagen’s non-profit center was established last year. The majority owner of Moller-Maersk is the A.P. Moller Foundation and its partners are shipping companies Maersk, NYK and oil company BP (NYSE:), Siemens Energy, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.