23 September 2019: The international shipping industry has launched a coalition that will bring together decision makers from across the shipping value chain to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 50% by 2050 and enable the industry’s transition to full decarbonization. The ‘Getting to Zero Coalition’ will develop a roadmap outlining tangible steps to accelerate the deployment of zero emission vehicles (ZEVs).

The Coalition is a partnership between the Global Maritime Forum, the Friends of Ocean Action and the World Economic Forum (WEF). Supported by Denmark, Ethiopia and Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) through the Energy Transition Track of the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Action Summit, the Coalition is backed by knowledge partners, including the University College London (UCL) Energy Institute, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the Energy Transitions Commission.

The Coalition builds on the Poseidon Principles, a global framework for integrating climate considerations into lending decisions to promote decarbonization of international shipping launched in June 2019, and has been signed by more than 50 leaders across the maritime industry, financial institutions and other stakeholders.

To achieve the Coalition’s goals, commercially viable ZEVs must start entering the global fleet by 2030, and their numbers must be radically scaled through the 2030s and 2040s. The roadmap the Coalition undertakes to develop by January 2021 will include concrete steps to accelerate the deployment of ZEVs through, inter alia:

• Visible and transformative leadership that can shift the industry consensus, increase understanding of what is possible and raise ambitions;
• A shared knowledge base of integrated decarbonization pathways to enable alignment and critical mass that can help shift the entire sector;
• Investment in analytics to focus on the fuels, ships, market drivers and policies necessary to make the transition to commercially viable and scalable ZEVs possible through technology, safety, economic incentives and regulation; and
• Catalyzing demonstrations, pilot projects and tests that can demonstrate the viability of different technologies, leverage best practices and inform investment decisions and regulations to speed up ZEVs’ deployment.

The Coalition was launched during the Climate Action Summit on 23 September. [Climate Action Summit Press Release on Coalition’s Launch] [Climate Action Summit Press Release on Expected Commitments] [Getting to Zero Coalition] [Getting to Zero Coalition Overview] [Coalition Ambition Statement] [SDG Knowledge Hub Story on Leadership Group for Industry Transition]