How Hong Kong can help make shipping more sustainable

Name: Chinese cargo ships sail along Arctic routes as Beijing plans ‘Polar Silk Road’
Uploaded: 2020-09-23T21:15:12.000Z
Duration: 1 min 35 s
Description: Chinese cargo ships sail along Arctic routes as Beijing plans ‘Polar Silk Road’

Shipping is greener than road or air, but industry recognises need for action and has big fuel and emission targets – the biggest challenges for local firms

Hong Kong is well placed to influence mainland policy and support sustainability efforts by upgrading infrastructure and encouraging the use of biofuels

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A general view of Kwai Chung Cargo Terminal on July 10. Many shipping firms in Hong Kong have announced plans to improve sustainability. Photo: Martin Chan

Richard Hext

Published: 5:15am, 24 Sep 2020Updated: 6:25am, 24 Sep 2020

The theme of this year’s World Maritime Day, on September 24, is “sustainable shipping for a sustainable planet”. It has a special significance for Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area, home to three of the 10 biggest container ports in the world.

Recent extreme weather around the world underlines the importance of this theme. Wildfires in the western United States are burning more than 5 million acres and sending smoke into the atmosphere that has reached western Europe. Meanwhile, new temperature highs have been recorded, including 38 degrees Celsius inside the Arctic Circle.

Many parts of East Asia have experienced devastating weather this summer, and Hong Kong recorded its hottest July since 1884. These weather extremes, which scientists predict will worsen, emphasise the importance for everyone to reduce their carbon footprint.

Hong Kong has always been a maritime place, and it was the maritime trade in agarwood that gave the Fragrant Harbour its name. Since the advent of the internal combustion engine and the rapid increase in global trade, shipping gradually became a more significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, which play a part in climate change.

Shipping is still a greener form of transport than road or air. However, the sheer scale of some 95,000 oceangoing vessels moving more than 90 per cent of the world’s goods means it is responsible for about 2.9 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

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Chinese cargo ships sail along Arctic routes as Beijing plans ‘Polar Silk Road’

It is sometimes noted that this figure is comparable with Germany’s greenhouse emissions, but this overlooks that Germany represents about 1 per cent of the world’s population, whereas shipping helps keep the whole world fed, clothed and supplied with power. More to the point, aviation is responsible for similar emissions, but delivers only a small percentage of the world’s goods.