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.