Photo by Arron Choi on Unsplash

China has made significant progress in curbing sulfur and particulate pollution from shipping, but current policies have limited impact on reducing nitrogen oxide (NOx) and climate pollution. With policymakers now deliberating the new Five-Year Plan, NRDC released a major report and organized two webinars to support China in devising policies for advancing low/zero-emission shipping. On July 28, NRDC launched a report that reviews best practices in Europe and the US in advancing low/zero-emissions solutions on domestic shipping. The report aims to serve as a reference for policymaking on curbing shipping-generated NOx and ozone pollution, and for devising a roadmap for co-controlling shipping air and carbon pollution. Report findings were covered by key financial and industry media, including People’s Daily, Caixin and China Shipping Press. Following the report release, NRDC jointly organized two webinars with the China Waterborne Transport Research Institute of the Ministry of Transport on shipping decarbonization. Held on August 18th and September 16th, these two webinars invited officials and leading industry experts from Europe and China to introduce the latest government and industry strategies adopted for accelerating the uptake of low/zero-emission marine fuels and technologies. Industry experts also shared the experiences of designing and deploying battery electric ships in Europe and China, and the ongoing research on using ammonia to power oceangoing vessels. Officials and researchers from Chinese government agencies overseeing environmental, maritime and industrial policies, experts from the industry and academia, and officials from the maritime and environmental authorities of Norway and Denmark, and the Embassies of Norway and Denmark in Beijing attended these two webinars.