Dec. 6 (UPI) — Maesk, the world’s largest container shipping company, announced plans to cut net carbon emissions to zero by 2050.
“We will have to abandon fossil fuels. We will have to find a different type of fuel or a different way to power our assets. This is not just another cost-cutting exercise. It’s far from that. It’s an existential exercise, where we as a company need to set ourselves apart,” Maersk CEO Soren Toft told the Financial Times on Tuesday.
The Danish company said in a statement that given the 25-year lifespan of a shipping vessel it would begin developing new ships to be on the seas by 2050. It called for a cooperative, industry-wide solution to replacing the diesel-powered ships currently in use, and said it would need to modernize its fleet of ships and streamline its supply chain.
“Maersk is putting its efforts towards solving problems specific to maritime transport, as it calls for different solutions than automotive, rail and aviation …With short battery durability and no charging points along the route, innovative developments are imperative,” the statement said.
The cargo shipping industry accounts for about 80 percent of all global trade, and the ships currently contribute about 3 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions.
