Big group of maritime organisations urge policymakers to beef up FuelEU Maritime regulations
More than 40 associations and companies including Danish Shipping have signed a joint letter to policymakers calling for modifications to proposed FuelEU Maritime regulations, with stricter emission reduction targets and rewards for green fuel usage.
PHOTO: Danish Shipping and other signatories call on EU politicians to speed up the transition to greener bunker fuels. Danish Shipping
FuelEU Maritime is a set of proposed EU shipping emission regulations that will likely mandate the greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity of the energy used on board ships to be cut by 2% by 2025, 20% by 2035 and 80% by 2050, compared to 2020 levels.
These targets will apply to ships above 5,000 gross tonnes (GT), to all energy used onboard ships in or between EU ports, and to 50% of the energy used on voyages where the departure or arrival port is outside of the EU.
But the proposed regulations do not include any rewards or requirements for uptake of alternative fuels. In its present state, the regulations also allow use of LNG until 2030, a point of contention with environmental groups.
Danish Shipping has previously called for regulators to set a target for 5% of the global fleet use “green fuels” by 2030 to help decarbonise the maritime sector.
Danish Shipping and its co-signatories have now requested that FuelEU Maritime regulations maintain a binding 2% sub-quota for the use of "renewable fuels of non-biological origin", like hydrogen-derived fuels.
“By 2030 at least five percent of the world fleet should be operating on green fuels, so we need to speed up the productions of e-fuels. The sooner, we start testing and scaling these green solutions, the better”, says Danish Shipping executive director of climate, environment and security Maria Skipper Schwenn.
The signatories to the joint letter also support a proposal by the EU Parliament to allow owners of ships smaller than 5,000 GT to be able to cash in for surplus compliance if they are fully powered by renewable energy.
By Debarati Bhattacharjee
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