Shipping has much to reflect on in the aftermath of this week’s report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which warned the world is on a far more disruptive course of climate change than had been understood.

Threat of climate extremes, floods, droughts, rising sea levels and upheaval for hundreds of millions of people are significantly heightened if global warming moves above 1.5C from pre-industrial times.

The panel, who had been asked to compile the report by signatory nations to the Paris Agreement on climate change, urged “rapid and far-reaching” changes to cut carbon-dioxide emissions by 45% by 2030, and to zero by 2050.

Timely action

Such cuts would demand a revolution in power-generation technology, not only on land but at sea.

So, it was timely that just days before, the chief executives of 34 shipowners, traders and shipping service providers signed a call for collective action to find practical solutions to slash carbon emissions.

Drawn up by participants in the new non-partisan Global Maritime Forum, it was signed at the body’s first annual summit in Hong Kong last week.

Signatories said they accepted the scientific rationale for urgent action to address climate change as presented by both the IPCC and the IMO in its recent greenhouse-gas (GHG) strategy.

In April, the IMO set a target to cut overall emissions by at least 50% by 2050, and emissions “per transport work”, as an average across international shipping, by at least 40% by 2030, pursuing efforts towards a 70% reduction by 2050 compared with 2008.

Shipping is estimated to have emitted about 885 million tonnes of CO2 in 2007 — about 2.8% of the global total — falling to about 796 million tonnes in 2012, according to the IMO’s third GHG study published in 2014.

The forum-pledge signatories committed to pursue emissions reductions and accepted the need for transparency to help drive change. They also accepted that the shift to a low-carbon economy has the potential to create new opportunities through innovation in technology and business.

Significant step

Among those that signed up were shipowners Euronav, GasLog, AP Moller-Maersk, Norden, Fairmont Shipping, Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, Pacific Basin and MISC, and traders Cargill and Trafigura. For such pillars of the carbon economy to publicly accept and commit to action is a significant step indeed.

Such a show of collective understanding of the need for the shipping industry to address decarbonisation reflects just how far the debate has moved in just a few years. Gone are the days when it was commonplace to hear support for climate-change denial at shipping events.

It parallels the shift among global energy producers, which are slowly engaging in development of new policy after decades of denial and foot-dragging.

Just this week, ExxonMobil became the first US oil company to donate money to a campaign to introduce a tax that would put a high price on carbon and return revenues to the public purse through dividends. It will give $1m over the next two years.

And last month, ExxonMobil alongside Chevron and Occidental Petroleum signed up to the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, which is committed to support the aims of the Paris Agreement and to fund emissions reducing technologies.

Among the recommendations of the Global Maritime Forum’s call to action is that emissions reduction objectives should be met at the lowest possible economic cost, with mechanisms such as carbon pricing explored.

Urgent situation

Signatories also stressed the urgency of the situation, with measures needing to be installed in the next five years, ahead of the IMO’s 2023 deadline for the completion of its decarbonisation strategy.

The Global Maritime Forum’s call to action is welcome — but it is only a start.

It has set itself ambitious targets to create a road map to help direct the industry to a low-carbon future.

Industry chiefs sign climate change pledge at GMF

Yet as this week’s IPCC report highlights, low-carbon alternatives may not be adequate.

The IPCC sees the need will be for complete decarbonisation by 2050, if catastrophic climate change is to be prevented. That is a huge leap from the 50% cut seen by the IMO.

It is now clear that decarbonisation will be one of the fundamental forces at work in global shipping in the next few decades. But to address that, the Global Maritime Forum signatories need to show real ambition and real leadership.

The challenge is theirs to map the route to a decarbonised future for shipping that can be debated at next year’s forum in Singapore.