The shipping sector’s carbon footprint

January 15, 2008 | by Alex Evans | More on Climate and resource scarcity, Global system | No comments

A coalition of international shipping companies have banded together to create a ‘Container Shipping Information Service’ to counter what they worry may be an increasingly negative image.  As FT coverage explains,

There has been particularly strong criticism in Hong Kong – which, with neighbouring Shenzhen, handles about 28 per cent of world container movements – and southern California, which handles 40 per cent of US container imports.  Research published last year claimed 60,000 people died each year as the result of ships’ high levels of sulphate emissions.

The shipping lines are also nervous of growing calls in the US for all containers to be searched before being sent to the US, because of the perceived threat of a container-borne terrorist weapon. Information put out by the service … will stress the benefits brought by container shipping, particularly the sharp reduction in global transport costs achieved by the industry.

One of the bits of data posted on the site is a graph comparing the CO2 emissions from moving a ton of cargo 1 kilometre with the emissions that would result from moving it instead by rail, road or air.  For shipping, the figure is 12.97 grammes of CO2 - as opposed to 17 grammes for rail, 50 for road and 552 for air.  Presumably, the shipping companies involved think this constitutes a good argument in shipping’s favour.  But in fact, the surprise is that shipping’s emissions are so high relative to the other three transport modes, rather than so low. 

It’s no great shock to see aviation emissions outstripping shipping’s by such a big margin - but remember that air freight is used for much smaller volumes and weights of cargo, usually of highly perishable goods.  The fact that shipping emissions are all of two thirds of those of rail, though - and well over a fifth of those of heavy goods vehicles on the road - is really surprising. 

I would have expected shipping to be a great deal more efficient than that, given the massive volume of cargo that a 3,700 TEU container ship can carry.  The fact that shipping’s CO2 emissions are in the same order of magnitude as those of road and rail - which move much smaller cargoes over much shorter distances - places a pretty big question mark over the long term viability of bulk trade in food and raw materials.  It also makes for a strong argument in favour of what development advocates have wanted for years: value-added processing and manufacture from raw materials to take place before export.

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