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Cost and environmental impact assessment of mandatory speed reduction of maritime fleets

Abstract:

To reduce greenhouse gas emissions from maritime transport, the International Maritime Organization has been studying measures to be implemented in the short term. However, there is a need to carefully analyze the impact of these measures on transport costs. The present work presents an assessment of cost and CO2 emissions from mandatory speed reductions on the world merchant ship fleet. Considering the product usually transported by each ship type and the distance navigated, expenditures and CO2 emissions are calculated to perform a cost-effectiveness analysis. Results reveal that a given speed reduction is more beneficial for some regions and ship types than for others. Higher speed reductions were found to be environmentally beneficial but significantly increase the annual seaborne transport cost. Finally, the cost-effectiveness analysis shows that the cost per avoided ton of CO2 emission ranges between USD 23 and USD 58, in 30% and 40% speed reduction scenarios, respectively.