LCS Final Report

Shipping was estimated in 2007 to account for 3.3% of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions. In the second International Maritime Organisation (IMO) GreenHouse Gas (GHG) study (Buhaug et al., 2009), it was predicted in that study that shipping would account for between 12-18% of global CO2 emissions by 2050 if no action is taken to reduce emissions from shipping. Not only is CO2 the majority driver of shipping’s contribution to radiative forcing, but also the most long lasting impact, demonstrating that the challenge is not one of the instantaneous emissions in any one year, but the cumulative emissions over time. In 2010, there was an absence of a holistic understanding of the shipping industry. Its drawn out contractual, technological and financial evolution has obscured access to both top-down and bottom-up system level understanding of its sensitivities and left many commercial habits engrained and unchanged. The inescapable truths identified around both the energy and carbon challenge, have created expectations of high uncertainty in the forecast for both the drivers of growth in shipping and the designs and system configuration that will evolve over the next few decades.

LCS Final Report.

Smith, T.W.P., Day, S., Mangan, J., Dinwoodie, J., Landamore, M., Turan, O. (2014)

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