Shipping is responsible for 3% of global emissions, and vital to the world’s economy, transporting 90% of global trade, so it is imperative that the sector decarbonises as quickly as possible.
The International Maritime Organization has targeted a 40% cut in emissions by 2030, including through switching to low carbon fuel alternatives, such as hydrogen, ammonia and batteries, and introducing digital technologies to make ships run more efficiently.
But there is growing concern that the industry’s workforce of 2 million seafarers, most of whom come from the Global South, risk being left behind if they cannot be trained in relevant new skills.
Critically, this includes learning how to handle new fuels: ammonia, in particular, is hazardous and could pose a safety risk to seafarers, ships and the wider environment if crew and port workers are not trained properly.
Modelling by Lloyds Register and University Maritime Advisory Services found that 450,000 seafarers will require some additional training by 2030, and 800,000 will need training by the mid 2030s, assuming a ramp-up of alternative fuels this decade.
While some companies, such as Danish operator Maersk, have invested substantially in targeted education and training, there were several challenges to delivering such training, a DNV study found. “A lack of clarity surrounding the viability and uptake of alternative fuel technologies and decarbonisation trajectories, coupled with uncertainty surrounding regulatory developments and financing, is making it difficult to plan for the further training of the maritime workforce and attract investment in skills programmes compatible with the industry’s future needs.”
Darian McBain is founder of consultancy Outsourced Chief Sustainability Officer and former global director of corporate affairs and sustainability for Thai Union. She says the maritime economy is lagging other sectors in green skills development.
“A lot of blue economy players are having to scale up their sustainability activities rapidly but there are not as many people with the sustainability skills who understand these industries.”
WEF points out that countries in the Global South that supply crews may need particular support during the transition, including through the establishment of national skills bodies.
In the Philippines, whose seafarers make up 14% of the global seafarer workforce, the government is getting advice from the Maritime
Just Transition Task Force, opens new tab, an organisation set up at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021 to “ensure that shipping’s response to the climate emergency puts seafarers at the heart of the solution”, and a newly established International Advisory Committee on Global Maritime Affairs.
One of the members of the advisory committee is the European Community Shipowners’ Associations (ECSA). Sotiris Raptis, its secretary-general, explains that the Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW) has not been updated since 2010 and is due to be revised.
ECSA is working with the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF) and the European Commission to launch an EU Maritime Skills Forum that can feed back to the IMO on what is missing from STCW courses.
Jesse Fahnestock, director of decarbonisation at the Global Maritime Forum, said digital skills will need a particular focus.
“We’re already seeing the first indications of increased land-based capacity to manage the operation of vessels, in the same way as power plants can be operated from a control room,” he said. “If ammonia becomes the dominant fuel, there is a higher incentive to have more land-based crew, and smaller on-board crews, because of the toxicity of the fuel.”
“The revision process has started, but it moves very slowly,” says Nikolaos Koletsis, senior policy officer for maritime transport at the ETF. “It can take up to five years, so it may be a bit late.”
But he adds that “It is very important that all workers have access to training for reskilling and upskilling at no cost, and that training should not take place during workers’ free time. … we need to be sure that the energy and digital transition of the maritime sector does not leave anyone behind.”
In an attempt to get ahead of the game, the ETF and ECSA launched SkillSea, a platform of seven educational packages, two of which focus on green skills while two are about digital skills. Out of SkillSea, which ran for five years until 2023, has emerged the Maritime Education and Training Network (Met-Net) to address future skills needs in the sector.
While the shift to greener shipping will require the building of new ships and the modification of existing vessels, as well as new infrastructure in ports to handle new, low carbon fuels, “we also need a new landside energy system to produce sustainable fuels for shipping,” says Mark Button, maritime decarbonisation leader at engineering consultancy Arup.
“When you think about shipping, it’s often ‘out at sea, out of mind’, but the vast majority of the investment needed to make shipping sustainable will take place on land, producing sustainable fuels.”
Because of the way these new sustainable fuels are produced, there are likely to be a number of regional supply systems rather than today’s single global system, he adds. “It upends the dynamic of where it is best to produce: the best locations will be where there is access to cheap renewable energy, so we are likely to see fuels being produced in places like North Africa, Chile and Australia, maybe even in the UK with its strong wind resources,” Button says. “It’s a big opportunity for a lot of countries in the Global South, but they will need a huge amount of capital to develop the infrastructure and production facilities to service this demand. That will mean lots of manufacturing and construction jobs.”
In turn, says the Global Maritime Forum’s Fahnestock, that will require engineering capacity and skills.
McBain says skills development in the maritime sector has not had enough international focus. “People still don’t see the maritime industry as part of the solution” to climate change, says McBain. “The focus is on green rather than blue. Only countries with a strong ocean border think about it today, but everyone must contribute and there will be increased demand in future for blue skills.”
Source: Reuters
