Renew Europe opts for more efficient and cleaner maritime transport with realistic and concrete measures

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Date: April 27, 2021

About 2.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions are due to international maritime transport and this figure is steadily increasing due to growing demand globally. Meeting today in plenary session, the European Parliament proposed to take ambitious but realistic measures, so that this sector achieves its green and digital revolution and contributes to the commitment made by the European Union to reach climate neutrality by 2050 at the latest, in accordance with the Paris Climate Agreement, while at the same time preserving the competitiveness of our European fleet.

Caroline NAGTEGAAL (VVD, Netherlands), spokesperson for Renew Europe for more efficient and cleaner maritime transport in the Parliamentary Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN), said: “This own-initiative report calls on the Commission to put measures on the table to make maritime transport more sustainable and efficient. In particular, Renew Europe wants to see a large-scale development of the use of low- and zero-emission alternative fuels. Zero-emission shipping remains our final destination, but since no technologically mature zero-emission fuel is market ready yet for maritime transport, Renew Europe made efforts to include liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a transition fuel solution. LNG is a more sustainable, affordable and widely available alternative to dirty heavy fuel oil. Low emission alternative fuels like LNG can bridge the gap on the route to fossil fuel free maritime transport and lots of investments have already been made by the sector. I am therefore glad that this is acknowledged in the report”.

The report stresses the importance of including maritime transport in the carbon emissions schemes (ETS), based on a comprehensive impact assessment. Particular attention is paid to ports, destined to become the clean energy hubs of tomorrow, and to the necessary improvement of their multimodal connection, in particular with rail and inland waterway transport. It also calls on ship owners and operators to implement all the operational and technical measures available to achieve energy efficiency (optimization of speed, optimization of navigable routes, introduction of new methods of propulsion with wind and solar power, etc).

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