EMEA News
Gibraltar Begins to Sketch out Low-emission Future
With the shipping decarbonisation debate primarily concerned with the fuels most likely to take sizeable market share from traditional fuel oil, how those fuels will be delivered is increasingly shifting the focus onto ports.
Gibraltar's environment minister, John Cortes, who was part of the UK's delegation to COP28, understands the need for longterm planning.
"Liquified natural gas is a transitional fuel and already we are doing some of that in Gibraltar, but ultimately, there is a feeling that the whole shipping industry will decarbonise by around 2050."
"It is increasingly obvious that ports that wish to retain bunkering facilities will have to be prepared to transition to new fuels like ammonia, for example, and possibly hydrogen," Cortes told local news outlet the Gibraltar Chronicle.
Moving in that direction would represent an important step for Gibraltar in "reducing the amount of fuel oil supplied here – and the knock-on carbon impact - and replacing it with cleaner alternatives".
Cortes said he could see tangential benefits from diversifying the port's fuel base.
"Once the ships are fuelled with ammonia, you are not going to see the smoke trails [from ships], so clearly the air quality in the port or near the port…would be cleaner."
The International Maritime Organisation's decarbonisation strategy allocates a key role to ports. Major ports and bunkering centres such as Singapore, Rotterdam and Los Angeles are pushing ahead with their own decarbonisation plans incorporating the formation of green corridors.
