Climate change pressures and the drive to decarbonise the shipping industry dominated the proceedings of The Maritime Standard Tanker Conference 2023, which took place on November 8th at The Atlantis, The Palm, Dubai. There was broad agreement amongst speakers that this is the single most pressing issue facing tankers owners and operators, as well as other stakeholders, although in many respects the optimum pathway to achieve the goals necessary to protect the global environment is far from certain, with a number of alternative fuels and technology solutions challenging for future primacy. What was clear however was a collective will to succeed and protect future generations, and ‘Mother Nature’, from the environmental harms being caused by shipping which, as one speaker pointed out, would be the 8th biggest generator of carbon emissions in the world today if it were a country.
