These would be: sustainability, hoarding and monopoly in the oceans and the decarbonization of the fleet.
Three major challenges for maritime transport, but which transcend the sector, are identified in the report published by Elsevier , entitled: “Sustainability, externalities and ocean grabbing: urgent challenges for maritime transport.”
These challenges include the sustainability of the economic growth model, the monopolization of the use of maritime resources and the absence of a clear alternative fuel to address the decarbonization of the global merchant fleet.
The report prepared by academics Lorena Garcia-Alonso, Fernando Gonzalez-Laxe and Ricardo Sánchez, states that these challenges originate in the impact that geopolitical conflicts, natural phenomena and other trends such as the technological revolution, financial fluctuations, trade wars, among others, have on the sector.
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Sustainability
The document notes that the Club of Rome laboratory laid the groundwork for the study of ecosystem degradation due to economic growth.
Thirty years later, global ecological footprint data has exceeded recommended sustainability levels by 20%.
On the other hand, it highlights that the collapse of international trade observed after the start of the pandemic, together with the growing geopolitical tensions, and the environmental need to bring production and consumption hubs closer together, is giving rise to a second industrial relocation, where large companies are now basing their strategies on three new concepts: reshoring ( recovery of relocated factories); nearshoring (reduction of the concentration of risks outside the region); and friendshoring (relocation to allied countries).
In short, whether due to the awareness of the need to change towards a more sustainable economic model, or the convenience of relocating production hubs, we can expect changes in international trade relations that will have far-reaching consequences for international trade flows in the medium term, both on the demand side (more volatile and containing the growth of flows) and on the supply side (with frictions arising from trade wars and changes in trade patterns).
All of the above will necessarily have an impact on maritime and port activities that can already be perceived, for example, in the configuration of maritime routes, the growing weight of regionalization and the definition of a new cartography of port connectivity and maritime routes, which in turn indicate new balances of power.
Ocean grabbing
The authors warn that the development of capitalism is moving from the exploitation of traditional productive resources to the expansion towards the oceans: “spaces with little commodification and [with a lot of availability of] unexploited natural resources.” In this sense, they emphasize the need to “establish roadmaps and international agreements” in the face of the negative externalities that this process is generating.
According to the report, the combination of increasing global demand, technological progress and the decline in land-based sources of resources makes the extraction of ocean materials economically interesting. This has led to a growing presence of transnational companies linked to ocean activities, which – by being highly intertwined with global supply chains and as a result accessing high capitalization and monopolization of markets – reconfigure the power relations between companies themselves, States and society as a whole.
These “super-entities” manage ocean resources, from exploring the seabed for minerals to installing wind turbines, sailing cruise ships and laying submarine cables, among other activities. This “blue acceleration” – the rapid increase in human activity in the oceans, driven by capitalism and industrialization – challenges coastal states to work determinedly to set the pace, objectives and actors involved in this drive, in order to protect themselves from the dangers of ocean grabbing.
Decarbonisation of the fleet
One of the main emitters of greenhouse gases (GHG) is the transport sector, and maritime transport, despite being the most efficient in terms of CO2 emissions per tonne, generates 3% of GHG emissions. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, if the emissions of the world fleet were assigned to a country, it would occupy sixth place in the ranking of CO2 emitters.
To combat the harmful effects of emissions from shipping, the fleet must face the challenge of decarbonisation in accordance with the Paris Agreement and the Glasgow Climate Pact, by adopting low- or zero-carbon propulsion technologies. However, the lack of consensus on which alternatives are most suitable, coupled with the lack of coherence in the policies designed, does not make the transition easy. In fact, there are serious doubts about compliance with the World Maritime Organisation (IMO) objectives of eliminating GHG emissions completely by 2050 and with previous control targets.