Seatrade-Maritime: Are UK and Cyprus Ministers in synch over decarbonisation?

Published by Seatrade-Maritime

Cypriot Deputy Shipping Minister, Marina Hadjimanolis, and Keir Mather, the UK’s Transport Minister agreed on stage in London, must work with the maritime industry to deliver a workable and pragmatic decarbonisation of a hard to abate sector.

Speaking at Tuesday’s Capital Link Conference both Ministers agreed that providing the right regulatory framework for industry to innovate is the process by which maritime decarbonisation can be delivered.

But there was a tension amongst the on-stage camaraderie. Though If your ears could blink, you’d miss the distinction.

The discussion offered a fleeting look at the strings being pulled to guide governments in their decarbonisation discussions.

Britain’s junior minister focused on autonomy and nuclear power, going as far as name checking a company, Ocean Infinity and a technology, maritime nuclear power.

Conversely Hadjimanolis talked about the key role of seafarers and the “pragmatic” measures needed for “a realistic [IMO Net Zero Framework] measure, we want a measure that will give stability to the shipowners.”

Hadjimanolis’ language is reminiscent of the Greek shipowners’ who argue that the pragmatic path to decarbonisation is to use the fuel that is readily available until a workable and affordable alternative is found.

For Greek shipowners that pragmatic fuel is LNG, a fossil fuel.

It so happens that Cyprus has relatively recently discovered large reserves of the gas off its southern coast. A fact that Hadjimanolis alluded to when discussing the country’s stance ahead of the Extraordinary Session of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) last year.

Unlike Cyprus, the UK’s gas reserves are largely spent, but its nuclear expertise is an industry that can offer emission free, clean, shipping at the point of use.

Asked about the lifecycle emissions and costs of uranium as a nuclear fuel the Minister told Seatrade Maritime News in a conversation: “Obviously, nuclear in shipping is an emerging technology, the UK has got a really robust rules-based system for a lot of the issues concerned with nuclear power, whether that be waste disposal, but we need to adapt and create new regulations to ensure that nuclear shipping can be something that the UK has a share of in the future.”

All concerns said Mather around nuclear as a maritime fuel need to be “robustly worked through” in discussions at the IMO and that any regulation of maritime nuclear power must be global and agreed at the UN body.

“The UK is clear that in order to decarbonise, we need to be exploring a range of decarbonisation measures in shipping, especially in regards to future fuels. We want to be part of that work, to realise the enormous opportunity that’s there,” added Mather.

What is clear, and unites the two ministers, is that their comments on emissions control and clean fuels are secondary to requirement of boosting national income.

Cyprus officials argued last year that it was likely that Cyprus would vote against the NZF, in defiance of a pan-EU agreement, while in the UK the Labour government could still tarnish its green credentials by approving new drilling in the North Sea for oil and gas.

Meanwhile, Mather’s mention of Ocean Infinity was no slip of the tongue. The company is a technology company that specialises amongst other things in seabed mapping and autonomous vessels, such as the Kuwaiti Coast Guard’s Needlefish uncrewed surface vessel (USV).

“The UK also needs to not be shy and to be unashamedly competitive,” said Mather, “In terms of capturing market shares in what is definitely going to define the future of maritime innovation in decades to come, and I see that particularly being in autonomous shipping.”

Hadjimanolis, however, stressed the importance of Cyprus’ history in shipping forming part of the country’s valued identity, which can be found in its people.

Shipping as an entity is its people stressed Hadjimanolis, contradicting Mather’s pitch for uncrewed vessel developments.

Moderator Dora Mace-Kokota, a partner at Stephenson Harwood, noted Hadjimanolis’ comments, adding that a maritime nation is about its people: “It’s also a nation that remembers and knows how to regulate and then how to act as a maritime nation,” she added, turning to Mather to ask if he had any more specific thoughts in terms of initiatives.

Mather, however, ignored the discussion on the workforce: “The first thing is that the government needs to show that we’re putting our money where our mouth is in terms of the sort of direction that we want to encourage private sector companies to work with us to make those big bets about where the future of shipping and maritime is moving.”

UK government maritime proposals are about technological fixes, because London is focused on growth and developing industry is key to growth.

In Cyprus with its major shipping related companies being ship management, the largest ship management cluster in Europe according to the minister, the focus is more on crew and staffing levels.

The discussion at Capital Link offers a brief glimpse to the complexity that liberal democracies bring to decarbonisation negotiations.

It is not that Ministers are being dishonest, it is that they are viewing the challenges from their own side of the black hole, and from that unique viewpoint they are focusing on jobs and wealth.

From a climate scientists’ point of view the focus is emissions reduction and the most efficient means to achieve that, while industry is there to make money and those views of the abyss offer their own challenges.

To avoid the inevitable crash through the event horizon, with humanity disappearing, industry, government and scientists must find a system of growth that brings these competing views into a genuinely green solution for our climate.