How Hong Kong can help make shipping more sustainable
- 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
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.
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.