The bottom line on sustainable shipping: Can the shipping industry reach zero emissions?

If the international shipping sector were a country, it would be the sixth largest CO2 emitting nation in the world. Every year, 11 billion tons of goods - about 80% of all the goods we use or consume - reach us by ship, emitting nearly a billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere in the process. And, about 40% of those goods - nearly 4.5 billion tons - are fossil fuels.

Unlike switching to renewable energy and electric road vehicles, there is not an obvious short-term economic benefit to decarbonizing shipping, which makes even the simplest solutions (like slowing down the ships!) difficult to incentivize. Climate Now sat down with Bryan Comer, Marine Program Lead at The International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), to discuss the shipping industry's decarbonization goals, the policy changes needed to reach them, and the future of sustainable shipping.

1:02 What is the ICCT?
3:17 Overview of the shipping industry
6:49 What are the emissions reduction goals of the shipping industry?
9:36 Strategies to reach these reduction goals
14:10 Challenges to accomplish the emissions reduction goals

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