Carbon War Room News

IMO’s 2050 deadline to reduce GHG emissions 50% from 2008 levels has set off a gold rush to develop Zero Emissions SolutionsClimate change is the biggest issue facing [all aspects of] the maritime industry, said Kitak Lim, IMO secretary general, in an interview earlier this year with Maritime Reporter & Engineering News. He predicted that shipping could experience as much change in the next 10 to 20 years as it has in the last 100 years, as the industry races to meet a number of challenges…

Global Maritime Forum, Carbon War Room, the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition (CPLC), and University College London (UCL) has announced the launch of a Task Force on Decarbonizing Shipping. This industry-led initiative will develop tangible pathways for shipping’s decarbonization through five working groups, each focussed on a key area of the industry. Outcomes of the task force will be presented at the Global Maritime Forum’s inaugural summit in October 2018. The Task Force on Decarbonizing Shipping will bring together leaders and experts from across the maritime industry to develop and mobilize the industry along tangible pathways aligned with ambitious, science-based emission reduction targets.

Today, Carbon War Room (CWR) and UMAS released research that suggests climate transition pathways pose risks to the banks that hold $400 billion of global shipping debt. With the onset of climate policies as soon as 2023, there will be a need for significant capital investment to keep vessels competitive. Navigating Decarbonisation: An approach to evaluate shipping’s risks and opportunities associated with climate change mitigation policy lays out the first approach to climate stress-testing of shipping assets and proposes that enhanced due-diligence undertaken today by financiers, shipowners, and shareholders can help deliver long-term value and avoid losses by the mid-2020s.

Carbon War Room (CWR) announced today that a collaboration between Hammonia Reederei, a Hamburg-based shipowner, and New Orleans-based charterer Intermarine, has enabled the retrofit of three sister vessels with multiple efficiency technologies. Under expected operating conditions, each vessel is anticipated to see 25 percent fuel savings, to be shared between Hammonia and Intermarine. José María Figueres, Chairman of the Board, Carbon War Room commented “This deal proves the profitability of shipowners and charterers collaborating on multi-technology retrofits. CWR awarded Hammonia a $120,000 grant to retrofit the vessels Industrial Ruby, Industrial Royal, and Industrial Revolution.

Six leaders and influencers from across the shipping industry will join global NGO Carbon War Room’s (CWR’s) Shipping Operation Advisory Board. Their backgrounds span the shipowning, chartering, technical analysis, finance, and academic worlds. The board will lend extensive industry insight and support CWR’s mission to profitably decarbonise the international shipping industry. Galen Hon, Manager, Shipping Operation, Carbon War Room, commented: "Following UNFCCC in Paris, the industry has an obligation to find new and innovative ways to reduce carbon while remaining competitive. With expertise spanning finance, ship operation, classification, data analysis, technology, and software, these individuals are perfectly positioned to identify and evaluate opportunities for innovation and growth.

Six leaders and influencers from across the shipping industry will join global NGO Carbon War Room’s (CWR’s) Shipping Operation Advisory Board. Their backgrounds span the shipowning, chartering, technical analysis, finance, and academic worlds. The board will lend extensive industry insight and support CWR’s mission to profitably decarbonise the international shipping industry. Galen Hon, Manager, Shipping Operation, Carbon War Room, commented: "We are thrilled to have gathered a group with so much knowledge and experience in shipping. Following UNFCCC in Paris, the industry has an obligation to find new and innovative ways to reduce carbon while remaining competitive.

Port Metro Vancouver today released its 2015 year-end statistics. Overall volume remained steady at 138 million tonnes of cargo as sectors experiencing declines were offset by others that hit new records. This is the port’s third consecutive year of strong cargo volumes, with new records set in the container, potash, and grain and agri-product sectors. Cargo shipped in containers continued to show substantial growth due to increased trade with Asia, with a five per cent jump in units (known as twenty-foot-equivalent units or TEUs) for a new record of 3.1 million TEUs. Grain and agri-product exports increased by eight per cent over 2014 to 25.1 million metric tonnes, and potash exports were 8.7 million metric tonnes, up 15.6 per cent from the prior year.

Finnish engineering company, Norsepower today announced that it has received €3 million in investment from a syndicate led by venture capital fund Power Fund III and has installed a second rotor sail on Bore’s Ro-Ro vessel MS Estraden. Data analysis and verification by NAPA, the leading maritime data analysis, software and services provider, has been fundamental to these developments by proving the effectiveness of Norsepower’s technology. A single Norsepower Rotor Sail was installed on the 9,700 DWT Ro-Ro carrier in early 2015. Although the weather conditions were largely calm over the three-month trial, data analysis from vessel performance monitoring and verification software, ClassNK-NAPA GREEN, demonstrated that the rotor sail delivered clear and significant savings of 2.5%.

WISTA UK, the Women in Shipping and Trade Association, isn't shy in hosting events that challenge its members to address the major issues affecting the shipping industry, and this was very much the case during the its most recent Forum. With the Paris hosting this week, The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference COP 21 meeting, the Forum looked at the part the maritime sector plays in the climate change agenda. The subject of Thursday’s debate (26 November) was the divisive emissions problem, with the panel exploring potential solutions to curtail shipping’s emissions. Three different, highly informative speakers set the scene and challenged the audience to look at the issues from a number of perspectives.

The Immediasea Shipping Debate Forum ‘Fuel Efficiency - The Way Forward’ was held in connection with the Nor-Shipping event in Oslo, Norway, in June. Leading the panel was Mark Fuhrmann from Blue-C who invited leading maritime executives to share their views on the future of shipping fuel-efficiency. Below are select quotes. “Our goal is clear, zero emissions. It will though take a while getting there.” He reminded the audience that “by 2050 we have to cut off CO2 production completely…

Norsepower Oy Ltd. and Bore Ltd today carried out successful sea trial of Norsepower’s Rotor Sail Solution, a new wind propulsion technology for ships. The sea trials, verified by NAPA and supported by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, confirm fuel savings of 2.6% using a single small Rotor Sail on a route in the North Sea. With these fuel savings, the technology has a payback period of 4 years. Based on the trials, Norsepower and Bore believe that a full system on Estraden with two rotors has the potential to deliver 5% efficiency savings on an ongoing basis. Norsepower forecasts savings of 20% for vessels with multiple, large rotors traveling in favourable wind routes. The Norsepower Rotor Sail Solution was installed on the 9,700 DWT Ro-Ro carrier MS Estraden.

Banks are beginning to recommend efficiency retrofits to shipowners, and are using energy-efficiency data in deciding which vessels they finance—and which they won’t, says a survey conducted by  Carbon War Room. If this trend continues, efficiency retrofits will offer increasing wealth-creating opportunities and inefficient ships will become more and more unmarketable. HSH Nordbank, KfW IPEX-Bank, and other banks surveyed by global NGO CWR have indicated that vessel efficiency rankings — such as the A to G GHG emissions rating developed by independent ship vetting company RightShip and CWR — now form an important part of assessing risk and return, with inefficient vessels now representing a higher-risk investment.

Demonstrating leadership and commitment to environmental sustainability, Barbados Port Inc. has committed to work in partnership with RightShip to develop an incentive program encouraging more efficient vessels to their port. During the 1st Hemispheric Seminar on Port Legislation held in Montevideo on the 24-25 November David Jean Marie, CEO of Barbados Port and Anuj Chopra, RightShip’s Vice-President - Americas, signed a letter of intent to develop a port incentive program using the RightShip and Carbon War Room Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Rating. The port incentive program rewards vessels with better energy efficient ratings. Measuring their carbon dioxide emissions…

An international association has been created to facilitate and promote wind propulsion for commercial shipping worldwide. The founding members of a new association for the shipping industry have announced the establishment of the International Windship Association (IWSA), an association that will encourage, advise and advocate for the use of wind propulsion technologies in the shipping industry. IWSA, established in the U.K. as an unincorporated, not-for-profit entity, will facilitate and promote the technology…

Shipping Fuel Transparency Will Lower Emissions and Cut Costs. NGOs call on shipping industry regulator to drive down costs, trigger improved fuel efficiency and reduce ship GHG emissions through efficiency data transparency. Transport & Environment, Seas at Risk and Carbon War Room are urging the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) not to withhold data on ship efficiency and fuel consumption. The call for action follows moves by some industry groups to undermine initiatives…

The Presidential Decree 979 and Marine Pollution Decree of 1976 were intended to protect marine and coastal elements from maritime pollution, yet due to their generality and datedness today, they are no longer efficient at regulating current environmental issues. For this reason, new MARPOL Annex VI legislation was introduced in 2005 and updated in 2010 to restrict further emissions in the emission control areas (ECAs). With talks of further regulations being rolled out in 2015 and 2020, the maritime industry is facing the harsh reality that avoiding fuel costs by compromising quality is no longer acceptable. In fact, from January 1, 2015 ships travelling the ECAs are forbidden from burning any fuel with a sulphur content of more than 0.1%, which is a 10% decrease from current limits.

Canada’s two largest west coast ports are now both offering financial incentives to shipowners based on the ‘A to G’ Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) rating, which benchmarks the energy efficiency of the international shipping fleet. Port Metro Vancouver’s ‘Eco-Action’ Program and Prince Rupert Port Authority (PRPA)’s ‘Green Wave’ Program will reward the most efficient vessels that enter the ports. PRPA’s Green Wave Program has already received 19 vessel entries during its first two weeks, with 11 of these vessels using the A-G rating.

Cargill, Huntsman Corp. & UNIPEC UK who combined charter over 350 million tonnes of commodities annually decide to charter only eco-friendly ships. Cargill, one of the world's leading international transporters, producers and marketers of food, agricultural, financial and industrial products, Huntsman Corporation, the global manufacturer and marketer of differentiated chemicals and UNIPEC UK Company Ltd, trader of crude oil and oil products, announce that they will only charter the more efficient vessels operating in the shipping market. This commitment is the first of its kind in the industry to reduce the existing fleet carbon emissions.

Carbon War Room, a not-for-profit organization targeting market-driven solutions to climate change, announced the launch of a series of online and live seminars for shipping industry participants on its Shippingefficiency.org online service - launched at the UN climate change talks in December. By the end of 2010, the site had logged over 25,000 visitors, while over 1,500 users had registered to make full use of the online service. The seminars aim to respond to questions from the industry about the design of the service, and its use. The aim of the new online data hub is to enable market participants to more easily factor in vessel efficiency to their decision making.

Shippingefficiency.org provides free environmental ratings of the world’s shipping fleet, based on standardized efficiency indexes, offering comparable data on 60,000 ocean-going vessels. Since its launch, the site has been hugely successful with an average 15,000 unique users per month and 1,750 registered users. Following the success of Carbon War Room’s first webinar in January, which attracted over 150 participants from across Europe, and due to demand in the Americas, Carbon War Room is hosting a second webinar presentation of the site for stakeholders.

Climate, energy and demographics are to be discussed by industry leaders in Vancouver BC, when BIMCO, the world’s largest representative shipping organisation holds its General Meeting in the Canadian city in June this year. Issues of sustainability are never far from the thoughts of ship operators these days, especially when contemplating the purchase of new ships, which may well have a 25 year lifespan. Shipping people have to look further ahead than most, as they contemplate the future demand for their ships…

A 'Creating Climate Wealth Summit Germany' hosted by Carbon War Room aims to accelerate clean technology adoption. Over 90 percent of the world’s trade cargo spends time on the ocean during its journey to market, carried by any one of approximately 60,000 active commercial vessels. Although the shipping industry, relative to other freight modes, is already very energy efficient, the widespread adoption of additional market-scale clean technologies which improve hull, engine and propeller design will produce further reductions in fuel consumption. With the global financial slowdown and increasing fuel prices precipitating a restructuring of resources across the shipping industry…