Port greenhouse gas emission reduction: Port and public authorities' implementation schemes
Introduction
Fossil fuel combustion accounts for 80% of global carbon dioxide (CO2)1 emissions, of which 30% is generated by transport (Kotowska, 2016), and owing to its dependence on fossil fuels, maritime transport contributes to transport emissions. While international shipping emission was accounted for by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), as emitting 2.2% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) (Smith et al., 2014), up until now, total global ports GHG emission is not yet accounted for. The reported port GHG emission is based on specific inventories in different countries ports. For examples, emissions were estimated as 280,558 (CO2e)2 tonnes yearly in Port of Chennai-India (Misra, Panchabikesan, Gowrishankar, Ayyasamy, & Ramalingam, 2017), 331,390 (GHG) tonnes in Port of Barcelona (2008 inventory) – half of which was attributed to shipping activities (Villalba & Gemechu, 2011), 548,075 (CO2) tonnes in five major UK ports (2008) (Gibbs, Rigot-Muller, Mangan, & Lalwani, 2014), 6172 (CO2) tonnes in Port of Limassol-Cyprus (Erdas, Fokaides, & Charalampous, 2015), 580,128 tonnes in Port of Shenzhen (2013) – 40% of which was attributed to port activities (Yang, Cai, Zhong, Shi, & Zhang, 2017), and 15,814 (CO2e) tonnes in port of Port of Valencia (2011) (Martínez-Moya, Vazquez-Paja, & Maldonado, 2019). Inventory results vary from one port to another due to differences in scopes, outreach, and calculations approaches of the inventory, and cargo throughput, among others. Nonetheless, port GHG emission is large considering that there are thousands of ports all over the world. However, it is not higher than that emitted by shipping and land transport in the port areas. Ships' emission (intensity) in ports increases to five times higher compared to the underway emission (Cullinane & Cullinane, 2019), which could reach to 5% (ITF/OECD, 2018) or even up to 15% of shipping total GHG emissions (Mjelde et al., 2019), thereby amounting to ten times higher than emissions of port operation (Cui & Notteboom, 2017). Likewise, land transport (trucks) CO2 emission is higher than that of ports, e.g. it is double the amount of port operation emission – in Port of Felixstowe (Gibbs et al., 2014). Since cargo handled at ports has to be transported to the hinterlands, port land transport generates high GHG emissions as well.
Seaborne trade is expected to increase, hence shipping GHG emissions are expected to increase by between 50% and 250% by 2050 (Halim, Kirstein, Merk, & Martinez, 2018; Smith et al., 2014). The same is true regarding port GHG emissions due to increasing demands for port and associated land transport services. Consequently, this intensifies climate change, and thus global warming, which stimulates floods, hurricanes and drought, causes the sea level to rise and changes oceanic circulation patterns. Climate change is a global phenomenon, which also causes port infrastructure and operations to deteriorate (Ng, Chen, Cahoon, Brooks, & Yang, 2013; Wilmsmeier, 2020). Although public authorities and policymakers consider climate change and sustainability in their discussions (Geerlings & van Duin, 2011; Grundmann & Stehr, 2010), reduction of GHG emissions in ports is still a laborious issue due to the high intensity of energy consumption, and to ports being hubs of anthropogenic emissions (GHG/CO2) from port, shipping and hinterland operations, coupled with institutional, economic, and political complexities.
Climate change mitigation regulations, whether national, regional, or international, apply to ports (Poulsen, Ponte, & Sornn-Friese, 2018). While ports recognise the environmental externalities, their role in the reduction of GHG emissions is essential to achieve the Paris agreement target of limiting the global temperature rise to between 1.5 °C and 2 °C (Halim et al., 2018). To achieve this target, all sectors, including maritime transport, need to decarbonise (Bouman, Lindstad, Rialland, & Strømman, 2017). Generally, maritime stakeholders, communities, and customers demand reduction of port GHG, and increase pressure on ports to address and express their environmental credibility (Puig, Michail, Wooldridge, & Darbra, 2017; Wilmsmeier, 2020). Hence, ports are subject to tight scrutiny to address climate change (Du, Monios, & Wang, 2019; Lam & Notteboom, 2014). Consequently, to maintain their licences to operate, ports have initiated and developed green port policies to reduce total emissions (de Langen & Sornn-Friese, 2019). For instance, Port of Los Angeles (POLA) and Port of Long Beach (POLB) introduced the Clean Air Action Plan in response to local community pressures and the Climate Action Plan in response to states' regulations (OECD, 2011). As a response to institutional pressure to decrease the carbon footprint and mitigate climate change, European (EU) ports have put energy consumption (second) and climate change (third) as top environmental priorities (ESPO, 2019).
Ports are driven to address climate change now more than ever, as GHG emission is a matter that concerns all ports (Gibbs et al., 2014). Thus, implementation of GHG emission reduction measures is justified because it fortifies port image and contributes to numerous attributes. Ports thus strengthen their corporate social responsibility (Moon, Woo, & Kim, 2018), and improve their green reputation (image) (Kang & Kim, 2017), so enhancing trust in ports. Via energy efficiency measures, which decrease their carbon footprint, ports also improve energy security (Ramos, Carballo, Álvarez, Sánchez, & Iglesias, 2014) and decrease energy costs (Wilmsmeier & Spengler, 2016). The undertaking of GHG emission reduction and energy efficiency (saving) measures are recognised as one of the pillars for planning and achieving the notable concepts of green (Davarzani, Fahimnia, Bell, & Sarkis, 2016; Lam & Notteboom, 2014) and sustainable ports (Asgari, Hassani, Jones, & Nguye, 2015; Bjerkan & Seter, 2019). Port green and sustainable pathways, specifically climate change mitigation, promote the environmental dimension of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs, 2030 agenda) (United Nations, 2015), in particular: Goal 7 (access to renewable energy), Goal 12 (sustainable consumption and production), Goal 13 (actions to mitigate climate change), and Goal 17 (strengthen means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development) (Alamoush, Ballini, & Dalaklis, 2021).
While ports reduce their GHG emission utilising various technical and operational measures such as electrification and hybridisation of cargo handling equipment, and energy efficiency measures (Acciaro, Ghiara, & Cusano, 2014a; Alamoush, Ballini, & Ölçer, 2020; Iris & Lam, 2019); the ports' role in GHG emission reduction is not only restricted to port operations but also encompasses oceangoing vessels (OGVs) and land transport. Extant literature addressed the port's role in reducing GHG emission for portside (Martínez-Moya et al., 2019; Misra et al., 2017; Y. T. Tsai et al., 2018), hinterland transport (Gonzalez-Aregall, Bergqvist, & Monios, 2018), OGVs (Tichavska, Tovar, Gritsenko, Johansson, & Jalkanen, 2019; Winnes, Styhre, & Fridell, 2015), and supply chains (Gibbs et al., 2014; Poulsen et al., 2018). In the same way, ports facilitate land transport and shipping emission reduction by providing various technical and operation measures such as onshore power supply (OPS) (Mjelde et al., 2019). Within this context, ports facilitate and support shipping GHG emission reduction, along with supranational regulation from the International Maritime Organization (IMO) (Notteboom, Van Der Lugt, Van Saase, Sel, & Neyens, 2020). This bolsters the IMO commitment (initial GHG strategy) to halve international shipping GHG emissions by 2050 compared to 2008 while attempting to phase them out completely (IMO, 2018a). The IMO, additionally, adopted a resolution that encouraged voluntary cooperation of member states' ports to facilitate shipping GHG emissions reduction (IMO, 2019).
While maritime GHG emission reduction – through innovative technical and operational measures – have gained momentum as a result of increasingly mature technology readiness level and of tightening regulations, amplified by the abovementioned drivers and motivations; the reduction of GHG emissions in maritime transport is still slow and the desired targets have not yet been accomplished, in shipping (Smith et al., 2014), ports (Sifakis & Tsoutsos, 2021) and land transport (Bergqvist, Macharis, Meers, & Woxenius, 2015). It could be also argued that issues such as associated high costs and low perceived contribution of technology (Notteboom & Lam, 2018), and organizational, institutional, and information barriers (Johnson & Andersson, 2014), have decelerated the adoption the measures. Given the high GHG emissions generated in port areas by port, land transport and shipping operators, the technical and operational measures to reduce GHG emissions within the port and beyond are considered inadequate. Port policymakers should not rely entirely on polluters to adopt technical and operational measures. Rather, vigorous efforts should be made to incorporate policy instruments and management tools to increase their implementation (Alamoush et al., 2020; Bjerkan & Seter, 2019; Johnson & Andersson, 2014). Such practices can be viewed as implementation schemes, i.e. policies and tools port policymakers can use to drive and improve the uptake of and investment in technical and operational measures. Nonetheless, once these implementations are viewed from the port standpoint, especially regarding GHG emission reduction, various issues and challenges exist from practical and academic perspectives.
First, regardless of location and even if they share similarities, ports are neither standardised nor homogeneous in terms of business and management models, size, functions, financial circumstances, and regulatory power (Acciaro et al., 2014; COGEA, 2017; I2S2, 2013). In addition, ports typically prioritise preserving their business by increasing their economic profits over sustainability planning (Bjerkan & Seter, 2019). Therefore, utilisation and types of implementation schemes adopted vary considerably. Second, due to health concerns, ports extensively use different implementation schemes in their green approaches to address air pollutants, particularly Sulphur Oxides (SOx) and Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) emissions (Gibbs et al., 2014; Poulsen et al., 2018). While these schemes could have been reasonably successful in achieving their goals, it is necessary to identify their applicability within the GHG context. Third, many ports still lack awareness of how to implement sound strategies to reduce both GHG emissions and energy consumption (Spengler & Wilmsmeier, 2019). Thus far, a specific port GHG emissions reduction strategy, including implementation schemes, rarely exists, although it should be simple to include one in ports environmental strategies (IMO, 2018b). From an academic perspective, research on port measures to reduce GHG emissions has been discussed in a mixed and fragmented fashion, in that technical and operational measures, and implementation schemes have been described interchangeably. Some implementation schemes have been discussed but have not been collated under a unifying theme. In addition, although many studies have conducted inventory of ports GHG/CO2 emissions, e.g. (Martínez-Moya et al., 2019; Misra et al., 2017; Styhre et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2017), and have suggested technical and operational measures to reduce emissions; implementation schemes have been lacking. These are various gaps this study aims to fill.
To this end, given the introduced drivers, challenges, and relevancy to ports, by means of a systematic literature review, this study aims to collate and analyse port implementation schemes based on features they share and real-world application, that is to facilitate the reduction of GHG emissions in the portside, including the shipping and land transport. Therefore, this study is guided by three central questions: Q1: What are port implementation schemes, including technical and operational measures, that can be used to reduce GHG emissions in portside, shipping and land transport operations (port polluters)? Q2: How are the implementation schemes best practiced considering the interplay between implementers and polluters (target groups)? Q3: What are the key issues and challenges within the implementation schemes and how can port policymakers seamlessly turn these issues and challenges into opportunities to reduce polluters' GHG emissions while at the same time maintain business integrity?
As far as we are aware, there are no prior studies which have reviewed and analysed port GHG emission reduction measures from policy and management perspectives while considering such large scope and different dimensions. Previous reviews focused mainly, for example, on general port sustainability (Bjerkan & Seter, 2019), and port technical and operational measures to reduce GHG emissions (Alamoush et al., 2020) and improve energy efficiency (Iris & Lam, 2019). Therefore, answering the study questions could inform port policymakers about various GHG emission/reduction implementation pathways including its pros and cons vis a vis opportunities. This enables better evaluation and prioritisation of implementation schemes' effectiveness, thereby improving the capability to draw reliable conclusions. While this study contributes to climate change mitigation efforts (Paris agreement target), and sustainable development, it also contributes to academic knowledge by improving the understanding of this topic and providing aspiring researchers with fertile future research agenda.
Section 1 of this paper explained the relevance of this study. Section 2 outlines the methods and materials, including the conceptual framework to facilitate analysis and discussion. Section 3 presents the analyses and results, including the technical and operational measures, with a focus on implementation schemes. Section 4 is the discussions and conclusions.
Section snippets
Systematic literature review
A systematic literature review (SLR) method is utilised to answer this study's questions and deliver a rational understanding of port GHG emission reduction pathways. The SLR approach is considered an unbiased method that starts with selecting appropriate keywords for searching and retrieving the literature from different databases and credible resources, then based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, data and key findings from different studies are extracted and synthesized to present an
Implementers (port policymakers)
The implementers (Dimension 1 in Fig. 2) are the port policymakers who generate and execute the implementation schemes to drive the polluters (target groups) to uptake GHG emission reduction technical and operational measures. However, due to varying port business and management models (governance); port revenues, implementation of regulation, and allocation of funds to environmental and climate measures are handled by different authorities. Within this context, the port governance, based on
Discussion and conclusions
The novelty is that implementation schemes not only help in reduction of ports' GHG emission, but also augment the international efforts to reduce OGVs and land transport GHG emissions. Insights about the implementation schemes can be gleaned in accordance with best practices retrieved from the sample of included studies9 (Table 5). Around 60% of the schemes' implementers are port authorities (PAs), while 40% are
Acknowledgment
The authors are very grateful for the constructive comments and suggestions from the anonymous reviewers and the Journal editor, and for their time. Their insights greatly assisted in enhancing the quality of the study.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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2022, Ocean EngineeringCitation Excerpt :Although there was a decrease in shipping emissions due to the decrease in international maritime trade with the effect of the pandemic in 2020 (Alamoush et al., 2022), an increase in emissions is expected again in 2021 and beyond with the recovery of the sector (Psaraftis and Kontovas, 2020; World Trade Organization, 2021). Quantifying the shipping emissions through the development of emission inventories is important as it shows the way forward in achieving the emission reduction target set forth by the IMO (Alamoush et al., 2021; Ammar and Seddiek, 2020; Monteiro et al., 2018; Sáez Álvarez, 2021). Emission inventories provide important data about the current situation of the relevant region and provide the opportunity to take the first step in understanding the effects of the activities carried out (Ferreira et al., 2013; Sorte et al., 2021).
Ports’ role in shipping decarbonisation: A common port incentive scheme for shipping greenhouse gas emissions reduction
2022, Cleaner Logistics and Supply ChainCitation Excerpt :Such agreed principles regarding different ships would provide guidance for different ports in different countries. It should be noted that the current shipping incentive schemes may not change shipowners’/operators’ decisions to invest in green technologies on operating ships but might be considered when new ships are being built, and the real impact should be looked at in the long run (Alamoush et al., 2021c; COGEA, 2017). In principle, port costs are only 10% of ships’ voyage costs, and the port dues are almost 10% of port costs.