NGOs Call on EU To Strengthen Clean Maritime Policy
The SASHA Coalition, together with six other NGOs and industry alliances, together representing 82 clean maritime and green hydrogen industry stakeholders, has written a letter to the European Commission and European Union Presidency urging it to strengthen clean shipping policy in the wake of what they say are disappointing regulations agreed last month at MEPC 83.
It says the IMO agreement fails to adequately boost green hydrogen and derived e-fuels.
A stronger price on all shipping pollution and high rewards targeting early green hydrogen fuel adoption would have helped e-fuel producers access the finances needed to increase production, and ships to switch to e-fuels.
To amend the IMO measures’ shortcomings, the letter urges the EU Commission to adopt a policy roadmap based on already planned legislation.
This would include:
• Introducing financial mechanisms to support e-fuel producers in the upcoming Sustainable Transport Investment Plan (2025).
• Expanding the maritime ETS and use revenues to support e-fuels (2026).
• Strengthening e-fuel uptake targets in the FuelEU Maritime review (2027).
• Continuing to push for ambitious regulation at the IMO that incentivize e-fuel uptake.
Aurelia Leeuw, Director of EU Policy at the SASHA Coalition, says: “The EU must deliver the policy support that the shipping industry is crying out for and that the IMO failed to secure. There is only one credible path to net zero shipping, and that is using green hydrogen fuels. But without EU support, the maritime sector will not be able to access and adopt these fuels, in turn failing to deliver the potential for industrial competitiveness these innovative sectors promise Europe. In the aftermath of the IMO’s disappointing outcome, there is a window of opportunity for the EU to nurture rather than neglect its nascent green shipping businesses – what’s to win is nothing less than meeting Europe’s climate targets and its Clean Industrial Deal goals.”
Madadh MacLaine, Secretary General of the Zero Emissions Ship Technology Association (ZESTAs), says: “From every angle, be it climate, industry or innovation, it is in the EU's best interest to strengthen clean shipping regulation where the IMO didn't. The IMO measures could have delivered the gust of wind ZESTAs’ members needed to set their next-generation technologies sailing, but instead it opened a gap for solutions that will bake in infrastructure investment in fuels that may do more harm than good: biofuels and LNG.
“ZESTAs calls upon the EU to support rigorous and specific science-based fuel lifecycle analysis methodology at the IMO, to support nascent ZEST industry, penalize pollution and to strengthen its own targets, for the sake of the shipping industry's future resilience as much as for the climate.”
The letter’s signatories include the SASHA Coalition, ZESTAs, NABU, Carbon Market Watch, the Green Hydrogen Organisation, ZERO – Associação Sistema Terrestre Sustentável, and Cittadini per l’aria onlus, representing a wide range of voices across the green maritime value chain and non-profits.
