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The impact of an EU maritime emissions trading system on oil trades

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.

Category

Academic article

Language

English

Author(s)

  • Pierre Cariou
  • Elizabeth Lindstad
  • Haiying Jia

Affiliation

  • SINTEF Ocean / Energi og transport
  • KEDGE Business School
  • Norwegian School of Economics

Date

09.08.2021

Year

2021

Published in

Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment

ISSN

1361-9209

Volume

99

View this publication at Norwegian Research Information Repository