Posts Tagged ‘green energy’

Yesterday morning, the Environmental Audit Select Committee published their report Reducing CO2 and other emissions from shipping. While I grant, it hardly sounds like a page-turner, I was discussing it with a friend who works as a journo at Lloyd’s List, one of, if not the, leading maritime publications in the UK.

He said this report was a wake up call for the government and shipping industry, which have employed, until now, a highly successful strategy of hoping nobody would notice the problem of maritime industry emissions and ignoring what is, evidently, a significant environmental problem.

I admit, my knowledge of the shipping industry is burgeoning on the non-existent, but what interested me about this is, the shipping industry is going to face an identical problem other industries have faced in the past and many more will in the future. Clearly, the sticking your head in the sand tactic doesn’t work and more industries will be found out as the public and regulatory agencies become increasingly environmentally aware and active. Everything we consume has a carbon footprint and as a story in last week’s Independent pointed out, TVs and electronics are huge power vampires, but consumer demand is beginning to force the manufacturers to fix this issue. Sony has been one of the first TV makers to answer this call.

When the Phase III of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) begins in 2013, many industries will be in for a bit of a shock if they aren’t properly prepared, in particular the aviation industry, which, for the first time will be included in the EU ETS. Phase III is expected to be far more rigid and will include an annually decreasing carbon cap. More details will undoubtedly follow before the beginning of Phase III in 2013.

It is also desperately necessary for the Government to pull its head out of the sand and start investing more money in green technologies. The last budget was definitely greener than previous ones, but the fact is, much more money needs to be invested in green renewable technologies including wind, tidal, wave, solar as well as increasing the capabilities of the electricity grid. Indeed, the Government is criticised in some quarters for not doing enough.

Hopefully, industry and government will pay attention to what will befall the maritime industry as they are forced to update due to public and consumer demand and everyone will learn the head in the sand theory doesn’t hold up.