One Planet Shipping
Can shipping be a lever in the transformation of the global economy to operate within the safe operating space for humanity?
In the last decade, the IMO has made massive strides in tacking GHG emissions from ships. In 2023, its Member States agreed on a zero by 2050 target, with intermediate checkpoints of a 30% absolute reduction by 2030 and 80% by 2040. Given the projected growth of maritime transport, this means that fossil fuels should be all but phased out by the late 2030s.
There is however a caveat.
The current IMO strategy focuses solely on curbing greenhouse gas emissions. Through this narrow focus, it only aims to address one of the known planetary boundaries Johan Rockström and his colleagues defined. Three of seven assessed boundaries had been exceeded in 2009. In 2015, that number increased to four out of seven in 2015. The latest data suggest that we have now crossed six of nine assessed planetary boundaries.
While it is urgent to phase out fossil fuels to stop climate change, solely focusing on curbing GHG emissions leaves too many challenges unaddressed. As maritime transport both enables and shapes global trade, it is worth asking what it can do to help shape a global economy that operates entirely above the social thresholds of countries and their citizens, while remaining below the planetary boundaries that outline the limits of the planet’s carrying capacity?
To answer that question, we organised the One Planet Shipping workshop aboard Klipper Isis on the Wadden Sea in the north of the Netherlands in early May 2024. We, in this context, means Lucy Gilliam (Seas at Risk), Elisabeth Schober and Hege Høyer Leivestad (both University of Oslo) and Christiaan De Beukelaer (that would be me).
We invited a motley crew of fellow academics, campaigners, and IMO insiders to discuss what more the shipping industry can do to tackle the climate and environmental crises as well as the social and economic challenges we face globally.
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There is increasing evidence that a good life for all humans is possible within planetary boundaries. Though that ‘good life’ would look differently across the world and would entail slowing down the metabolism of the globalised economy. The challenge lies in charting a socially viable and politically feasible pathway to doing so.
Did we ‘solve’ that problem? Not quite. Though we never believed we would.
The workshop was deliberately unstructured and open-ended, in that we had no intention of working towards a tangible goal or outcome. Surely, we hoped some things would come out of it, but we did not force ourselves to deliver something.
To facilitate this, divided the over-arching question into five thematic blocks that guided our time on board – without restricting it. Rather than focusing on the outcome, we prioritised the process by aiming to develop a community of practice, or a ‘group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.’
On Monday evening, shortly after embarking, Lucy explained her notion of One Planet Shipping and the work she’s been doing on this as a campaigner. This helped set the scene of why we gathered on a sailing ship.
On Tuesday morning, Phil Steinberg presented his work on Ten Myths of Ocean Geography. This opening gambit was a way to challenge our individual and collective “common knowledge” about the ocean and shipping. More importantly, it served as an invitation to all of us to articulate the myths and biases that colour our respective projects, organisations, or disciplines. Our aim of opening with this was to invite everyone to speak from their expertise, while humbly acknowledging the limits and limitations of the frameworks they operate in.
(Perhaps ironically, talking about global issues requires questioning the implicit universalism that often frames our thinking and action.)
On Tuesday evening, after a lovely day of sailing, we explored where the current ‘energy’ transition of the shipping industry is taking us. Simon Bullock presented his work (published with Alice Larkin and James Mason), on the urgency to take climate action in shipping and whether the 2023 IMO Strategy aligns with a 1.5-degree future (not quite, but almost). John Kautoke an IMO negotiator for Tonga then explained the Pacific perspective on IMO negotiations and why an equitable transition is so important.
On Wednesday morning, we shifted to a more active engagement with the topic. We split up in three groups that characterise the main negotiating blocs at the IMO. These three blocs were ‘developed’ countries, Small Island Developing States SIDS and Least Developed Countries (LDCs), and BRICS plus major oil producers. Our task was to imagine what the future of shipping and global trade would look like in the year 2100. In doing so, we explored whether the Safe Operating Space for Humanity could serve as a useful normative horizon as the ultimate goal of collective action, or if the limitations and challenges to this model make it too imperfect to be ‘useful’.
In the afternoon, we went on to discuss our ideal scenarios. First, we did so in jest, by bringing humour (and some cynicism) into the conversation. This helped us expose the fault lines between (and within) the three negotiating blocs. We soon shifted to a more serious discussion of whether and how these conflicting priorities could be reconciled.
We didn’t quite solve the problem. But we did manage to start building a community of practice. Being aboard together, starting to work together to bridge the gap between individuals and complex systems, to find ways out of the mess we’re in. The openness and commitment of all participants helped a great deal. Though working the ship collectively and being out on the water helped a great deal too.
The Wadden Sea is a beautiful part of the world (designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site) where land meets sea in a way that keeps on changing. The water between the islands and the mainland is mostly drying land, through which shallow channels change as the weather exerts its forces over the muddy soil. It’s hard to describe the place, though Pieter-Rim de Kroon - a Dutch filmmaker - has made Silence of the Tides, a beautiful documentary film that captures the interplay of humans and nature in the region.
It is precisely that interplay between humans and the environment that kept us awake – in some cases quite literally so – throughout the voyage. We did agree that maritime transport can serve as a lever for change. Though we have not quite figured out what would this look like in practice and what kinds of partnerships and plans are needed to prepare for the paradigm shift that’s needed to take a more interconnected approach to the combined climate, environmental, and social crisis, which we collectively - albeit very differently - face.
We’re all in the same stormy ocean, but we’re not all in the same boat.
What’s next? We will go sailing again. This time from Middelburg to Rotterdam, to better understand the colonial legacy of Dutch ports, while exploring the role these major nodes in global supply chains can help shape trade in service of people and planet.
— Many thanks to Leon, Kata, and Matthijs for crewing our voyage, the Gouden Vloot for the smooth charter organisation, as well as the University of Oslo (notably UiO:Energy and Environment) and the ClimateWorks Foundation for supporting the workshop.