Global Maritime Forum Discusses Maritime Shipping’s Moonshot Mission

At its Summit this week in Singapore (30/31 October 2019), the Global Maritime Forum has discussed the Getting to Zero Coalition.  The Coalition is a group of 70 companies  and international organisations in the maritime, energy, infrastructure, and finance sectors.  The aim of the Coalition is to have commercially viable deep sea vessels operational by 2030.  These vessels would supported by the necessary infrastructure for scalable zero carbon energy sources including production, distribution, storage and bunkering.  This initiative is  also known as maritime shipping’s moonshot mission.

The Coalition was launched at the UN Climate Action Summit in September and the Global Maritime Forum notes that the Coalition was first discussed at its 2018 Summit.  The 2019 Summit aims to discuss the concrete next steps needed to put the maritime industry on the path towards a zero emission future. Key questions include:

• What are the fuels, technologies and supply chain needed to transition to a low carbon future?
• How can the development and deployment of low carbon solutions be financed and de-risked especially to motivate first movers?
• How can policies be accelerated at a local, national and regional level to enable a rapid shift away from the use of fossil fuels?

The Coalition includes intergovernmental organisations such as the Global Maritime Forum, Friends of Ocean Action, and the World Economic Forum.

The Going Zero Coalition members include Maersk, Citi, Gaslog, Shell, Lloyd’s Register, Trafigura, ABN-AMRO Bank, BMW Group, CMB Technologies, DFDS, Danish Ship Finance, Hempel, Aarhus Havn, Port of Antwerp, Port of Rotterdam, Siemens Gamesa, and Societe-General.  Knowledge Partners include The University of Central London (UCL), and the University Maritime Advisory Services (U-MAS.)

The Coalition is technology neutral and will focus on zero energy sources that are likely to be technologically, economically and politically feasible at scale.  It is looking to develop vessels that are commercially viable.  This will involve working with lenders and  investors, customers, energy companies, governments and regulators.  This will ensure that the  necessary financial incentives and business models are developed.

The Coalition is still at an early stage.  in the first year, it will need to develop a management structure.  It also wishes to increase its membership. Developing deep sea vessels in a ten year timeframe is ambitious and in the short term the Coalition wishes to concentrate on the development of research and innovation and then business cases.