Norway’s bad IMO diet plan for shipping: a solution that causes more harm than good

Faig Abbasov from the NGO Transport & Environment argues that a proposal under discussion at the International Maritime Organization would seriously undermine efforts to decarbonise global shipping and to make its transition equitable. 

Imagine that you need to lose weight for medical reasons. Your dietician writes you a strict dietary plan to reduce daily calorie intake but says that you can eat whatever you want in the evenings. This won’t work, because evening meals can just offset the achievements of the rest of the day. Well, this is reminiscent of one of the world’s self-proclaimed climate champion’s plans for shipping. Norway, in partnership with the unhealthy climate alliance, is proposing a similar diet plan to wean ships from climate-polluting dirty fuels. Let me explain how.

Last year, the IMO agreed to eliminate shipping GHG emissions by 2050, while reducing them significantly by 2030 and 2040. It also agreed to develop mandatory regulatory policies, ship diet plans if you will, to help the maritime sector hit those targets. This needs to be achieved through the implementation of a basket of measures, including a technical fuel GHG standard and a carbon pricing mechanism applying the polluter pays principle to international shipping. 

Fuel GHG standard (a.k.a. GFS) is a fancy name for fuel mandates, which aims to get ships to progressively switch to lower-emitting fuels. For such a mechanism to work properly and effectively, the ultimate precondition is the implementation of a life-cycle accounting (LCA) system. 

Some fuels have most of their emissions released during the production process, while others are most emissive when used on board the vessels. The LCA system creates a level playing field among different fuels by making sure that all emissions are taken into account.

For example, take grey ammonia produced from fossil gas. It is zero carbon when used on board the vessels, but on a life cycle basis emits about 30% more GHG than residual fuel oils used by ships today. Or take biodiesel produced from crops like palm oil, which has direct production (i.e. upstream) emissions half that of fossil fuels, and indirect upstream emissions three times bigger. This is because of the massive deforestation palm oil plantations generally lead to.  

Or take fossil LNG, which contains fewer carbon atoms and, thus, emits less GHG than fuel oils when used on board. But the production, refining and transportation of LNG is energy intensive and leakage prone. Some of those methane leakages are so massive that methane satellites around the Earth’s orbit can detect them. As a result, this fuel can have almost twice as big of upstream GHG footprint as the fuel oils, if not more. 

Just like our bad dietician, Norway, alongside China, Brazil, Argentina and others, propose the IMO to ignore the upstream emissions of alternative fuels in their GFS proposal. Fuels with higher upstream emissions are generally considerably cheaper than less emitting ones. For a sector with a cut-throat cost-cutting mentality, the Norway et al. proposal would be a perverse signal to disregard the true climate footprint of alternative energy and focus on the quick and dirty solutions to demonstrate progress. 

In turn, this would do nothing but shift shipping’s climate problem from sea to land, and only exacerbate the energy transition difficulties many countries, especially in the developing world, face today. Just like the bad diet plan that would incentivise eating more in the evenings and potentially cancelling out the benefits of the morning and afternoon regimes.

The IMO has been under intense scrutiny by the environmental community because of its sluggish efforts to address shipping’s climate footprint, which is bigger than that of Japan’s. Last summer, the organisation and the industry patted themselves on the back by adopting a new strategy full of aspirational goals. Those goals will remain aspirational, unless they are written into binding, effective and enforceable policies. The IMO has tried that twice in the past but failed; it must avoid Norway et al becoming its final strike.