Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC) has joined other liners to support the call for global carbon taxation for shipping and an initiative to set up a worldwide fund for decarbonisation research.

Soren Toft, CEO of MSC, believes that carbon pricing could help the industry to decarbonise by reducing the price gap between fossil fuels and zero-carbon fuels as they become available.

He said that scalable long-term solutions simply do not currently exist for MSC to deploy on its ships.

“There is a gap in R&D to bring these alternative fuels and technologies to the market and the industry wide research fund will help us achieve the UN IMO’s policy targets,” said Toft, formerly with 2M partner Maersk.

Maersk has made its own views clear on the matter too with CEO Skou saying this week he favoured a global tax of at least $450 per tonne of fuel oil.

MSC stated on Friday that the industry urgently requires a diverse range of alternative fuels on a large scale.

The world’s second largest carrier highlighted the importance of determining the right combination of new fuels and technologies and implementing viable industry-wide proposals to invest in R&D to achieve those goals, and, ultimately, the zero-carbon future.

In an open letter yesterday, signed by the CEOs of 17 World Shipping Council members, MSC has joined an industry call to action to UN IMO member states to support the proposal for a R&D fund that would help catalyse new technologies and zero-carbon fuels to decarbonise the industry.

 

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MSC boss Soren Toft backs carbon taxes and decarbonisation R&D fund