New Zealand has signed itself up to be part of an ambitious global plan to decarbonise the maritime industry by 2050. Emma Hatton talks to Transport Minister Michael Wood about what role a small fish like Aotearoa can play
In a fairly under-the-radar trip to Norway in June, Transport Minister Michael Wood took some time to admire the world’s biggest electric ferry.
“Most of the ferries that they run are electric ferries and it’s fairly significant infrastructure they've had to install but you do get another benefit, which is that generally over the long term these vehicles are cheaper to run, generally, you have fewer moving parts and the engines off them,” Wood told Newsroom.
“So they have lower overall maintenance costs... and actually, maybe over five or 10 years, you start to pay that cost off and overall the costs become less.”
It's an early sell to New Zealand, with no immediate plans to set up infrastructure at ports that support large low-carbon vessels, but a long-term commitment to support an international shift.
In 2021, New Zealand became a signatory to the Clydebank Declaration. That commits us to support the establishment of green shipping corridors – zero-emission shipping routes between two ports.
The agreement strives to establish at least six green corridors by 2025. This requires supplies of zero-emissions fuels, the infrastructure required for decarbonisation, and regulatory frameworks.
Wood’s visit to Oslo wasn’t specifically shipping-related, but it was centred on electric vehicles. He said New Zealand’s interest in the green shipping work underway internationally was two-fold.
“One is we're generally very focused on how we decarbonise transport, and we do have some focus on maritime within the emissions reduction plan.
“But secondly, because we are about as far from any other country in the world, and we are reliant on those international maritime connections for a lot of our imports and exports, we think it's particularly relevant for us.”
The initial green shipping routes look set to provide links to North America. The Port of Antwerp (Belgium) and the Port of Montreal (Canada) have signed a cooperation agreement to support the corridor.
Similar plans have been confirmed for a corridor between Los Angeles and Shanghai, but Wood said New Zealand’s first steps would be domestic.
“We've obviously put a real focus on coastal shipping... We've got the new inter-island vessels on order from Hyundai and they will be much more efficient and have a battery electric component within them.
“And so I think through that work on our domestic fleet we can start to investigate and get some of the infrastructure in place at some of our key ports, and then begin to broaden out to probably the more complex and more investment-heavy sort of infrastructure you'd need for bigger ocean-going vessels.”
