The Green Horizon we see beyond the Big Blue
Sustainable Shipping Position Paper: How Seafarers will lead the just transition needed for a sustainable shipping future.
ITF Seafarers Section has delivered the Sustainable Shipping Position Paper: The Green Horizon we see beyond the Big Blue
Odd Rune Malterud, ITF Maritime Safety Committee Chair, and assisant director & technical manager NUME:
It is the engine / electrician officers and their crew who will face the biggest safety and competence challenge as high voltage, new type of fuel and energy sources for propulsion and manoeuvring, maintenance, explosions hazard and firefighting
David W. Hendel, ITF Seafarers' section Chair:
Over one hundred industry experts, seafarers, union members and people of goodwill all the way from Bahrain to Brazil, joined the discussion about what a just transition should look like for the world’s million-plus international seafarers.
The panel and audience members both agreed that we need a system-wide shift to speed up the maritime industry’s transition to a zero-carbon future.
To deliver a sustainable shipping industry—for future generations and our climate—seafarers must have seats at the table from the very outset.
Our position paper is being released at a critical time as global leaders begin to descend upon Glasgow for COP26.
Seafarers are already seeing the dangers of climate change, and we want to be part of the solution. Industry must draw on our extensive experience and expertise when drawing up plans to decarbonise in the coming months.
In our paper, we call for a bold, ambitious action to match the speed and scale of the push to zero-carbon shipping by 2050.
We demand a safe transition, without shortcuts being taken in fuels or technologies — and with plenty of training options to build us up into an even higher-skilled profession.
Of course, none of us can do this alone. Seafarers will work in partnership with industry to set the course for our collective future.
This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to ensure this profession and its industry is one that seafarers the world over are proud to call their own.
In that spirit, let’s get to work.
