Great potential for coastal shipping in “green shipping corridors”

The Mari­time Uni­on says there is great poten­tial for low emis­sion coastal ship­ping help­ing New Zea­l­and to move to a zero car­bon future.

The Cly­de­bank Declar­a­tion signed by New Zea­l­and and 21 oth­er nations in 2021 pro­motes the estab­lish­ment of green (zero emis­sion) ship­ping cor­ridors between ports, using new propul­sion tech­no­lo­gies.

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Craig Har­ris­on says the future of trans­port will be about resi­li­ence.

He says sup­ply chain issues exper­i­enced dur­ing the COVID pan­dem­ic were an example of how glob­al events could quickly throw the eco­nomy into chaos.

“The cli­mate crisis is already caus­ing dis­rup­tion and urgent action is required to reduce emis­sions in our trans­port sec­tor and build resi­li­ence.”

Mr Har­ris­on says the Mari­time Uni­on sup­ports the work of the Gov­ern­ment around decar­bon­iz­ing the trans­port sec­tor and back­ing low-emis­sion modes such as coastal ship­ping.

Min­is­ter of Trans­port Michael Wood this week noted in an inter­view the import­ance of the mari­time sec­tor and the poten­tial for low emis­sion coastal ship­ping as part of the decar­bon­iz­a­tion shift.

While some inter­na­tion­al routes are being planned, New Zea­l­and green ship­ping may ini­tially be a domest­ic ini­ti­at­ive.

KiwiRail has two new low emis­sion dies­el-elec­tric Inter­is­lander fer­ries on order, and MOVE Logist­ics have plans to intro­duce a meth­an­ol powered RORO ves­sel onto the New Zea­l­and coast with sup­port from the Gov­ern­ment.

New Zea­l­and ports are also mov­ing towards more sus­tain­able prac­tices.

“New Zea­l­and is extremely well placed to take advant­age of the com­ing revolu­tion in low emis­sion ship­ping,” says Mr Har­ris­on.

He says a green ship­ping cor­ridor between Aus­tralia and New Zea­l­and with loc­ally flagged and crewed ships would be a logic­al exten­sion to domest­ic coastal ship­ping.

Mr Har­ris­on says there has been a massive turn­around in the coastal ship­ping industry in the last year.

“The Gov­ern­ment should be com­men­ded for its lead­er­ship and prac­tic­al sup­port around get­ting coastal ship­ping back on a growth tra­ject­ory.”

He says there is now an urgent need to ramp up train­ing for a new gen­er­a­tion of New Zea­l­and sea­farers for the future of the mari­time industry, which will also include off­shore renew­able energy pro­jects as well as the trans­port sec­tor.

Mr Har­ris­on says there is already a strong push around the world by the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers Fed­er­a­tion (ITF), inter­na­tion­al State agen­cies and industry groups towards “just trans­ition”.

“Just trans­ition” is the shift to a decar­bon­ized, green eco­nomy accom­pan­ied by social goals includ­ing retrain­ing for work­ers, and high pay, high skill jobs.