Aimed at accelerating the transition to carbon neutral shipping, Maersk has announced its goal to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.
The company said that to achieve this goal, carbon neutral vessels must be commercially viable by 2030, and an acceleration in new innovations and adaption of new technology is required.
The company said that to achieve this goal, carbon neutral vessels must be commercially viable by 2030, and an acceleration in new innovations and adaption of new technology is required.
Climate is one of the most important issues in the world, and carrying around 80 per cent of global trade, the shipping industry is vital to finding solutions, said the company. Maersk’s relative CO2 emissions have been reduced by 46 per cent(baseline 2007), approx. 9 per cent more than the industry average.
As world trade and thereby shipping volumes will continue to grow, efficiency improvements on the current fossil based technology can only keep shipping emissions at current levels but not reduce them significantly or eliminate them, the company said.
“The only possible way to achieve the so-much-needed decarbonisation in our industry is by fully transforming to new carbon neutral fuels and supply chains,” Søren Toft, Chief Operating Officer at A.P. Moller – Maersk said.
Maersk is putting its efforts towards solving problems specific to maritime transport, as it calls for different solutions than automotive, rail and aviation. The yet to come electric truck is expected to be able to carry max 2 TEU and is projected to run 800km per charging. In comparison, a container vessel carrying thousands of TEU sailing from Panama to Rotterdam makes around 8800km. With short battery durability and no charging points along the route, innovative developments are imperative.
Given the 20-25-year life time of a vessel, the company says it is now time to join forces and start developing the new type of vessels that will be crossing the seas in 2050.