Abstract
Maritime transportation will be included in 2022 into the European Union Emission Trading System (ETS). There is however a limited knowledge on the impact of this inclusion for shipping markets and operators; and on whether it can bring enough incentives for carbon abatement measures. We contribute to this debate in developing a methodology to assess these impacts. Our method is applied to a sample of over 38,000 European voyages carried out by oil tankers from 2017 to 2019, during which an estimation of 60 million tonnes of CO2 were generated by EU-related voyages. With a carbon allowance price at USD 10–50 per tonne, we estimate that the industry could contribute up to 0.3–1.4 billion USD per year. We show that even with a low price, the ETS provides sufficient incentives for specific abatement measures, and in particular, for wind-assistance technologies.