From reductionism to systems thinking: How the shipping sector can address sulphur regulation and tackle climate change
Paul Gilbert
Marine Policy, 2014, vol. 43, issue C, 376-378
Abstract:
The shipping sector is required to reduce fuel sulphur content to 0.1% in Emission Control Areas by 2015 and to 0.5% globally by 2020. Although this is demanding, a greater challenge for all sectors is climate change. However, the three options to comply with sulphur regulation do little to address this challenge. With a deep-seated change to the type of fuel burnt in marine engines, this should be seen as an opportunity to explore co-benefits of sulphur and carbon reduction – instead of taking a short-sighted approach to the problem. It is argued here that the upcoming sulphur regulations should be postponed and instead, a co-ordinated suite of regulations should be implemented that tackles cumulative CO2 emissions and localised SOx emissions in chorus. This would ensure that less developed, yet more radical, step-change forms of propulsion such as wind, battery and biofuels are introduced from the outset – reducing the risks of infrastructure lock-in and preventing the lock-out of technologies that can meaningfully reduce absolute emissions from the sector.
Keywords: Shipping; Climate change; Mitigation; Sulphur; CO2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:marpol:v:43:y:2014:i:c:p:376-378
DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2013.07.009
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