TRIBUNE: Maritime transport is engaged in a complex process of decarbonization. Significant progress has been made, but it still needs to be deepened. However, the rising taxes threatening the sector could undermine the necessary investments.
While it accounts for 90% of global goods transport, maritime transport is responsible for only 3% of global CO2 emissions. This share could rise to 17% by 2050. This is why, at the beginning of 2024, the member states of the International Maritime Organization set the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. Over the next twenty-five years, significant investments will be required to modernize and renew the global fleet.
In France, the maritime sector is fully aware of the challenge for its future and competitiveness, as evidenced by its decarbonization roadmap. Presented in 2023, it is broken down into 7 axes and 34 actions. This effort is even more significant given France’s importance in the global maritime sector.
On a global scale, it is estimated that decarbonizing the maritime sector, including financing new decarbonized ships, could cost between 1,000 and 2,000 billion dollars. This amount is even more significant as the global fleet is expected to double within the next thirty years. The decarbonization is being driven along two main axes: changing the type of fuel used and reducing consumption by improving ships.
CMA CGM has partnered with Suez and Engie.
For fuels, CMA CGM, for example, has formed partnerships with Suez and Engie to produce more responsible gas for vessels operating on liquefied natural gas (LNG). This is the Salamandre project, whose main lines have just been unveiled, aiming to produce 200,000 tons of renewable gas per year by 2028. The 120 large container ships ordered by the Marseille-based shipping company since 2017 will all be powered by so-called “transition fuels”: LNG or biomethane, and possibly soon, hydrogen.
The improvement of ships involves numerous innovations, all contributing to reducing consumption. For instance, artificial intelligence is used to improve maneuvering in ports, or autonomous vessels such as the Yara Birkeland from Norwegian shipowner Kongsberg Gruppen, which is equipped with lidars and optical and infrared cameras, as is the Mayflower from the NGO Promare and IBM, which features PowerAI Vision technology with radars and lidars. It also involves improving propellers to enhance thrust, the implementation of hybrid engines operating on fuel and electricity, improving ship hulls, and optimizing drag. All these operations, combined, lead to a substantial reduction in fuel consumption. However, this requires massive investments, and thus the need for financial capital.
Higher taxes mean less competitiveness.
Investment is therefore the strategic key to the sector. And to invest, significant financial resources are needed. This is why French proposals to raise taxes are causing concern within the industry. Whether it’s the removal of the tonnage tax, to be replaced by a tax on turnover, or the introduction of exceptional levies on large companies, these are taxes that could not be reinvested into fleet modernization.
Moreover, in terms of taxation, in France more than elsewhere, what is temporary tends to become permanent, and low rates always end up rising. By choosing the easier path of increasing taxes rather than the more difficult route of reducing expenditures, the government addresses an immediate need but harms the maritime sector in the medium term. Investments that will not be made in 2024-2025 due to higher taxes will penalize the French maritime transport industry in the next ten years. Édouard Louis-Dreyfus, president of Armateurs de France, has expressed concern, highlighting the regulatory contradictions that require improvements in performance on one hand, while reducing investment margins on the other.
In addition to the decarbonization challenges, the maritime sector is under tremendous pressure. Between attacks by Houthis in the Red Sea, threats in the South China Sea, instability in the Eastern Mediterranean, rising insurance costs, and the potential blockage of straits leading to the Black Sea, the sector is navigating troubled waters. These are all unexpected additional costs and sources of fragility for major global shipping companies, particularly European ones.
Source: valeursactuelles
