Shipping industry greenhouse gas emissions

While the Yara Birkeland is smaller than some of the cargo ships entering circulation today, which are still fuelled by heavy oil and diesel, the growth in fully electric ships is picking up pace.

Clean shipping advocates plan to spotlight the sector’s emissions at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which opens today in Bonn, Germany. Known as COP23, the gathering marks two years since the world agreed in Paris on a landmark climate accord — one that the Trump administration plans to abandon. The agreement, however, excluded pollution from international shipping and aviation in its targets to limit global warming. Officials had argued that those industries don’t easily fit into national or regional emissions schemes — and so they were left to regulate themselves.