Decarbonisation and shipping post-COP26

This article examines the latest developments affecting the shipping industry’s decarbonisation efforts on the back of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) and the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee’s 77th session (MEPC77). It is argued that a public role for the shipping industry is crystallising, and an enabling environment for co-regulation, via the development of policies, measures and programmes in cooperation with the IMO, is neatly falling into place. Opinions diverge on whether COP26, held in late 2021, succeeded in setting global efforts to fight climate change on the right course to limit global warming to 1.5°C by 2100. Pledges to phase out the use of coal power (despite the toned-down language adopted in the Glasgow Climate Pact), end deforestation, cut methane emissions, and the US–China Joint Glasgow Declaration on Enhancing Climate Action were all promising announcements, although dependent on the voluntary action of their signatories. With the protection of our oceans moving higher up the policy agenda, not least thanks to a growing emphasis on nature-based solutions and the adaptation to the risks of acidification and rising sea levels, the role of the shipping industry, one of the main human activities impairing our oceans’ health, came under the spotlight once more. This was reinforced by the chronological proximity of the Glasgow event and MEPC77, where the deliberation of proposals for an improved zero-emission by 2050 target was a key item on the agenda