JOB cuts at the Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Centre for Zero Carbon Shipping reflect tougher times for decarbonisation, but they also highlight a few home truths.

The independent non-profit group, funded by partner companies and the Maersk family’s philanthropic foundation, will cut its staffing by a third to focus on shorter-term green measures, instead of more speculative work on future fuels.

We are long past the days where “What Will Be the Fuel of the Future?” was all the industry could talk about. Wars and energy shocks have made finding enough fossil fuels a far more pressing priority than replacing them by 2050.

Global warming, like all pollution, is the result of a market failure that can only be fixed by regulation, or the emergence of some miracle technology.

There is still some future-gazing going on, but any fuel switching will be chosen as a hedge against regulation.

If the regulation comes, then biofuels/methanol/ammonia may have a future. If it doesn’t, then it’s business as usual until the next major climate disaster revives the debate.

Shipowners know this. Some 85% of the ships they’ve ordered are conventional, according to DNV’s latest figures.

The debate has changed, but the fundamental problems of decarbonisation haven’t.

As Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Centre chief executive Bo Cerup-Simonsen says in our interview, it is up to the world to decide it is willing to pay more for greener ocean shipping.

Declan Bush
Senior reporter, Lloyd’s List

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