This is Part 3 of a short series on efforts to decarbonize the global shipping industry. Part 1 addressed international policy and politics, Part 2 efficiency measures. This part looks at alternative fuels. In mid-October, more than 100 nations will gather at a London meeting to decide whether to enshrine a set of carbon reduction rules into international shipping law. If they do, high-emitting conventional shipping fuels will be heavily penalized within a few years. But the rules don’t specify how they’re to be replaced; industry members would get to decide which low- and zero-carbon fuels to use instead. And so, spurred largely by these pending global regulations, the race is on to develop alternative fuels and scale up their use. Shipping accounts for about 3% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, and activity is expected to rise in coming decades. Efficiency measures to reduce fuel use of any kind, such as in hull design, will help but aren’t anywhere near a complete solution. “You’re not going to get to zero” with just efficiency, Lee Kindberg, former head of environment and sustainability for the North America division of Danish shipping giant A.P. Møller-Mærsk, often known simply as Maersk, told Mongabay. “Think about moving this huge mountain of metal with all these boxes of cargo on top of it,” she added. “It takes a lot of energy to do that, so it’s going to take low-carbon fuels.” Experts may disagree on the best alternative fuels, but they generally agree on which ones…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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