The Commission is expected to present, in July of 2021, its proposal on the use of renewable and low carbon fuels in maritime transport, Fuel EU Maritime.
Nevertheless, this first legislative initiative requiring ships to phase in sustainable marine fuels is of concern to some NGOs, such as Transport & Environment (T&E ), which revealed the document. The Commission’s current draft proposal would lead to a shift towards “natural gas and an unsustainable amount of dubious biofuels”.
The Commission’s approach to this issue is based on increasingly stringent greenhouse gas intensity targets over time for energy used on board ships.
Preferring this approach to a prescriptive regulation, the Commission states that this responds to the need for flexibility that was “highlighted by stakeholders during the consultations”.
For a number of stakeholders in the environmental protection sector, liquefied natural gas could power ships calling at EU ports until 2040 and could remain the cheapest compliant energy over this period.
According to T&E, this approach could make the EU’s 2050 emission neutrality targets unattainable.
See the Commission document: https://bit.ly/3jakczB (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)