Maritime businesses can expect support from London’s finance sector for investment in decarbonisation initiatives due to the scale of the opportunity, the City's mayor has pledged.
Alderman William Russell said London’s financial and professional services sector was prepared to back investment in both hardware and software to help accelerate cuts to shipping’s carbon footprint.
The City’s financial sandbox for experimenting with new products and services showed the sector was able to help businesses develop new opportunities, said Russell, a financier who is the top official in the section of central London that houses much of its financial services industry and key shipping institutions.
Go green or go home
He said all businesses faced a stark choice.
“You can either go green, or go home. It’s not an either-or situation,” he said.
“To paraphrase that political phrase: ‘It’s the green economy, stupid.’”
He echoed the words of former Bank of England governor Mark Carney who described decarbonisation as the investment opportunity of a generation.
Russell was speaking at the opening conference of London International Shipping Week held at the International Maritime Organization headquarters.
Kitack Lim, the IMO's secretary general, opened the event by urging shipping to look forward to a “reimagined future” and a green recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Decarbonisation is humanity’s biggest challenge, he said. Shipping must play its part to accelerate the reduction of carbon pollution, he added.
Critical moment
“We must look at decarbonisation as an opportunity. The next two years are a critical moment for us all. I believe this is an opportunity,” Lim said.
He again anticipated that the IMO would adopt an “upgraded” decarbonisation strategy in 2023, building on the positive momentum since the first statement in 2018.
In the first meeting held in the IMO’s main assembly room since lockdown, he paid tribute to seafarers who had worked under extremely difficult circumstances during the pandemic.
And he urged more governments to declare seafarers essential workers to ensure better treatment of those who have been unable to leave their vessels.
