Politicians urged to set ambitious green fuel regulations

More than 40 signatories representing the entire value chain of green fuels, including Danish Shipping, have sent a joint letter calling on politicians to aim for a proactive and ambitious regulation in the present FuelEU Maritime trialogue.

Associations and companies including fuel suppliers, end-users and maritime technology suppliers sent a joint letter to key policymakers on 19 January, calling for an ambitious FuelEU Maritime regulation.

In the letter, the signatories encourage the co-legislators to fully seize the opportunity to make the EU a global leader in green shipping by raising the ambitions via a higher GHG-intensity target on the one hand and promoting the uptake of green, sustainable e-fuels by including a multiplier mechanism to reward first movers and a dedicated binding sub-quota to ensure an industry-wide uptake.

“We need to stimulate the ramp-up of alternative, sustainable fuels already in this decade. FuelEU Maritime is a unique opportunity, and it is so important that we “get it right from the start” by introducing the mechanisms – multiplier and sub-quota – that will help drive the uptake of green, sustainable fuels”, said Maria Skipper Schwenn, Executive Director of Climate, Environment and Security at Danish Shipping.

The signatories call for a multiplier mechanism that will stimulate the use of the far more expensive e-fuels in order to incentivise the uptake of green fuels.

As explained, applying such a mechanism would allow a company to be in compliance despite using a smaller volume of new e-fuels compared to other more market-ready green fuels, such as sustainable biofuels. A multiplier will send a strong signal to end-users and producers, that e-fuels must be part of the future fuel mix for shipping, and that investments can be placed to scale-up production.

To provide e-fuel producers and shipping companies with certainty in their investment and planning horizon, the signatories encourage the legislators to go further and maintain the binding 2% sub-quota for renewable fuels of non-biological origin as proposed by the European Parliament.

Finally, the signatories believe that an exemption for small companies from FuelEU Maritime is counterproductive, stating that the rules need to apply to large as well as small shipping companies as everybody needs to pull in the same direction in the transition.

“By 2030, at least 5% of the world fleet should be operating on green fuels, so we need to speed up the production of e-fuels. The sooner, we start testing and scaling these green solutions, the better”, concluded Maria Skipper Schwenn.