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The marine shipping sector consumes around 10 quadrillion British thermal units (Btus) of fuel and emits 1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide each year. That’s more than all of Germany’s emissions, more than all of Saudi Arabia’s emissions and roughly equal to the emissions from all passenger vehicles in the United States. By any reasonable measure the shipping industry is a major global emitter, one of the economic sectors that must be fully decarbonized by midcentury to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Eliminating GHG emissions from marine shipping is an enormous undertaking, but the technological path forward has been reasonably clear for a few years. What has been missing is the requisite will among the shipping industry and regional and international regulators to require and implement the steps that need to be taken.