Clean Fuels in the Maritime Shipping Sector

The largest maritime shipping vessels consume a gallon of fuel every 15 feet. This prodigious consumption is one reason international shipping accounted for nearly 3% of global warming by 2018. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) is leading a global effort to reduce the carbon intensity of shipping by switching to low-carbon fuels and modernizing aging fleets. The European Union issued new regulations that adopt even more aggressive emission reduction targets, but which also implement several incentives that would complicate efforts to apply rigorous market-based accounting to a sector that has yet to see a voluntary market emerge.
 
This background report, the fifth and final sector-specific background report released by CRS’s Clean Energy Accounting Project (CEAP) as part of its inaugural Clean Fuels Week, is part of an initiative developing market-based accounting guidelines for clean fuels.