Maritime shipping, responsible for transporting 90% of global trade, provides a crucial link between communities and the global supply networks needed to support health, well-being and livelihoods. It is also a major contributor to greenhouse gases, with maritime vessels responsible for 3% of the world’s annual emissions. The industry has made important strides toward decarbonization, including a series of ambitious commitments at COP26 to reduce emissions in alignment with IPCC guidance to maintain global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius. This race to zero must remain a priority.
Yet maritime infrastructure is increasingly exposed to shocks and stresses, and the risk of highly consequential disruptions in service, including from climate change, geopolitical uncertainty, and the urgent need for social and environmental equity. These cumulative disruptions to global supply chains undermine economies and societies, raising the cost of living, creating political instability, and making it harder to respond to climate pressures both in and out of the sector. Urgent adaptation is needed. COP27 marks a turning point in maritime shipping’s race to resilience.
Many actors are working to improve aspects of the sector’s resilience. High-impact solutions are emerging, but they are not linked by a common framework and set of targets to coordinate action at scale, or by metrics to evaluate progress. Accelerating the pace and scale of the resilience transition will require a consolidated action agenda. This is the objective of the Maritime Resilience Breakthroughs, launched at COP27. These are the first resilience breakthroughs to emerge from the maritime sector, making it the first sector to elaborate a complementary mitigation and resilience framework.
Discover why a balanced strategy that includes so-called “Avoid” and “Shift” measures is needed to truly decarbonize transport.
A coalition led by the Regional Maritime University (RMU), South African International Maritime Institute (SAIMI), and the Climate Champions Team has issued a call to action to ensure a just transition for African seafarers.
Multi-stakeholder initiative Resilience4Ports launches the first sectoral, action-based commitment to enhance and accelerate resilience of ports from the effects of climate change.
Global industry leaders build on momentum from previous COPs to strengthen targets and commit to increasing the uptake of zero or near-zero GHG emission shipping fuels to at least 5%, striving for 10%, by 2030.
