Edi­tor's Se­lec­tion: De­car­bon­i­sa­tion moves heat up as COP26 puts fo­cus on cli­mate change

Ship­ping was omitted from the of­fi­cial agen­da at this week's cli­mate change talks in Glas­gow, but that did not slow the tid­al wave of in­dus­try and gov­ern­ment in­itia­tives to ac­cel­er­ate ship­ping's en­ergy tran­si­tion.

Mean­while, others were more fo­cused on to­day's mar­kets rath­er than to­mor­row's prob­lems, with GoodBulk's Michael Radziwill sing­ing Don't Worry Be Hap­py a­bout the re­cent dry bulk slump.

Here is what I have been read­ing this week:

1. Group of 19 coun­tries un­veil 'green cor­ri­dor' plan at COP26

Among the key agree­ments to dir­ect­ly ad­dress ship­ping in the UN cli­mate con­fer­ence in Glas­gow, the Clyde­bank Dec­lar­a­tion for Clean Ship­ping Cor­ri­dors aims to cre­ate at least six zero-emis­sion ship­ping routes by the mid­dle of the dec­ade. Then, 19 na­tions in­tend to ex­pand that by 2030.

2. Ship­ping lead­ers de­bate LNG's role as tran­si­tion fuel at COP26 as na­tions pledge meth­ane cuts

Can LNG fuel­ling be part of the path to ship­ping's de­car­bon­i­sa­tion? Emis­sions from meth­ane, the key com­pon­ent of the fuel, has come un­der grow­ing pres­sure dur­ing COP26, but sev­er­al ship­ping gi­ants de­fended LNG as step to take ac­tion now to cut car­bon, rath­er than wait for a clean­er al­terna­tive.

Click here to read the story.

3. For­tes­cue aim­ing for world's first am­mo­nia ship by end of 2022

Af­ter ditch­ing its own plans for LNG-fu­elled bulk­ers, For­tes­cue Metals Group chair­man Andrew Forrest ap­pears to have switched to a more pio­neer­ing strat­egy. The bil­lion­aire said his com­pany is aim­ing to have an am­mo­nia-fu­elled bulker on the wa­ter by the end of next year.

4. Ship­own­ers, work­ers and UN agen­cies band to­geth­er to en­sure 'just' de­car­bon­i­sa­tion

As ships tran­si­tion to new fuels in the race to de­car­bon­i­sa­tion, the world's sea­far­ers will be at the front lines of the en­ergy tran­si­tion, al­though they are rare­ly men­tioned in the de­bate. Now, the Inter­nat­ional Transport Work­ers Fed­er­ation has joined the Inter­nat­ional Chamber of ship­ping and the Unit­ed Na­tions Global Com­pact to cre­ate a task force to en­sure de­car­bon­i­sa­tion takes place in a way that pro­tects the sea­go­ing work­force.

5. 'Act, and act fast!' Notes from the front­line at COP26 in Glas­gow

Trade­Winds was on the ground in Glas­gow and saw how the re­turn of the US to the cli­mate-change dis­cus­sions has in­jected new life into glob­al ef­forts, in­clud­ing those re­lat­ed to the green­house gas emis­sions from ship­ping. "It's am­bi­tions, but it's not am­bi­tious enough," said as­sist­ant en­ergy sec­re­tary Andrew Light.

6. Radziwill: Don't sweat the 'mas­sive over­reac­tion' in bulker mar­kets

In the face of sink­ing ca­pe­size bulker rates, GoodBulk chief exec­u­tive John Michael Radziwill sought sol­ace singing Bobby Mc­Fer­rin's Don't Worry Be Hap­py. The spot mar­ket's down­turn this quar­ter has been a "mas­sive over­reac­tion" and typ­i­cal of the mar­ket, he told Trade­Winds.