UK Chamber of Shipping charts a $915 million course to net zero in new budget proposal

The UK Chamber of Shipping has published a roadmap laying out the ways shipping in the UK could reach net-zero emissions by 2050 with a proposed plan for £700 million (circa $915.5 million) worth of investments in the upcoming Budget as part of efforts to aid the country in becoming a clean and ecologically forward shipping hub.

Central to the roadmap is an updation of the Clean Maritime Plan, which was initially released back in 2019 with the goal of guiding the UK’s emission reduction endeavors.

Launched by Maritime Minister Nusrat Ghani MP in London, the plan called for all new UK waters ships ordered from 2025 onward to be engineered with ‘zero-emission compatible technologies’. To this purpose, the plan set aside a £1 million ($1.3 million) competition to discover ‘new and innovative’ ways to minimize maritime emissions.

Despite the effort, the government had never followed through with the plan, prompting maritime bodies to write to the UK’s maritime minister Mike Kane, urging for the establishment of a long-term decarbonization plan.

The Chamber of Shipping, the British Ports Association, the British Tugowners Association, Cruise Line International, Maritime London, the Society of Maritime Industries, the UK Major Ports Group and Workboat Association, who were the signatories of the letter, exhorted that a successor to the Clean Maritime Plan should be a top-most priority.

Within the scope of the latest roadmap, the Chamber made several recommendations to the government, putting a spotlight on the areas it believes public investment could be best spent. It also includes ‘vital’ private funding to push the country toward its sustainability targets.

Among the recommendations are:

• Continuing funding for research and development through the UK SHORE program (focused on delivering a suite of interventions throughout 2022-2025 to speed up the production of domestic-made clean maritime technologies);
• Delivering shore power so that vessels can plug in when in port and avoid running their engines;
• Safeguarding lifeline ferry services from exorbitant emission trading scheme fees, via an exemption of £10 million (approximately $13 million) per year through to 2030, i.e. until the infrastructure is in place to allow them to fully decarbonize;
• Support for the Maritime Training (SMarT) scheme, which helps cover the high costs of training a cadet, thus making sure the industry has the new talent and manpower it needs to reach its overarching targets.

Speaking about the proposed plan, Rhett Hatcher, the UK Chamber of Shipping CEO, stressed, “We all want to see shipping in the UK reach net zero as quickly as possible. Our roadmap sets out a pathway that we believe is achievable and maximizes the return on government investment through unlocking industry finance and job creation.”

Nonetheless, he added, “A long-term plan is an important first step, but this must be matched by delivering the infrastructure we need as is already happening in other locations.”

As per the Chamber, presently, the UK supplies around two million tons of fuel to ships per year, while ‘neighboring’ Rotterdam supplies ten million tons.

But as demand rises, the Chamber of Shipping has underscored that the UK could play a ‘major role’ across the maritime fuel industry in the ‘near future’—so long as the government commits.

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