Goodbye to energy shipping?

As the global maritime sector focuses on moving towards a carbon-free future, it may have to accept that shipping may become less important to world trade

Published Tue, Jul 30, 2019 · 09:50 PM

SOMETIMES we collectively miss the blindingly obvious. For quite a while, the shipping industry has been grappling with the idea that it must find its way to a carbon-free future. And we have all been focusing on clever technical solutions for pushing the world fleet around the globe in a zero-carbon scenario.

Possibly I have missed it, but I haven't noticed any discussion of what moving to a carbon-free, or even significantly less fossil-fuel dependent, world would mean for all those tankers, gas carriers and coal-carrying bulk carriers that currently keep everybody's lights on and the wheels of industry turning.

Tankers and gas carriers make up about about a third of the world fleet, as do bulk carriers (although they carry lot of other commodities as well as coal).

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