There is a growing realisation in shipping that nebulous net zero pledges are starting to require action and investment, and will be harder to achieve than first thought. The divide between those who can and can’t be relied upon is widening

Maersk is to be applauded for its ambition. But for mass adoption of methanol fuel to make environmental sense, the molecule shipping uses must be truly green — and there is plenty to suggest it won’t be

Britain’s schools are crumbling. So is UK maritime policy

For those seeking guidance on what to do next, the MEPC80 targets may have been too weak a signal

The dark fleet may be coming out of the shadows, but the cloud it casts over the rest of the industry is not going anywhere

Until now, shipping has always found a workaround to restrictions on using this key waterway. But it won’t be able to do so indefinitely

The embattled country has the moral high ground in its fight with Russia. By declaring commercial shipping a valid military target, it abdicates a portion of it

EVs have gone way beyond ‘first kid on the block with a Tesla’ bragging rights and production volumes will increase exponentially. We need to be sure ships can carry them safely

Blowing up neutral shipping is in nobody’s best interest. Not even Moscow’s

If the industry is to have confidence in the Suez Canal Authority’s pilotage service, extensive retraining and assessment of English proficiency may be required

The IMO’s loosely worded climate targets fall short of keeping shipping aligned with the 1.5°C Paris Agreement temperature goal, but they are closer than most expected and keep alive the prospect of global technical and economic measures to come that could yet radically reduce the industry’s carbon output

If China gets its way, fragmented regionalism will replace the United Nations specialist agency as the rule maker. That is not good for world trade and not good for shipping, either

Even if you’re as tired of environmental stuff as Tor Olav Trøim, you’ll soon find out that the more polluting you are, the more it is going to cost you to borrow

Carriers will welcome the six-year settlement between port employers and dock worker representatives announced this week. But it’s time to move on from ritualised confrontations twice in every decade

Former US presidential contender John Kerry used a speech at Nor-Shipping to compare the industry’s fuel transition to the Allied invasion of Normandy. When a decorated Vietnam veteran uses military metaphors, pay attention

Our industry is providing a second front without the shooting. Let the vice tighten slowly but surely

Sanctions are only going to get more extensive. The past week shows that everybody in the industry — from Ulaanbaatar to the outskirts of Bristol — would benefit from greater situation awareness

The climate change activists were not parading around Dubai’s convention centre calling shipping to account: There was no point. Shipping has lost the radical edge that challenges, confronts and contests

When 53 seafarers can be taken hostage in the space of a week and it barely causes a ripple in the international news, it is time for the shipping industry to address why it all too often seen as an ‘easy’ target

Sanctions efforts have so far been unrolled more by way of moral suasion and threatened consequences rather than active enforcement. But that is likely to change shortly

As long as shipping disputes are by default resolved under English law in English courts, domestic firms have an obvious head start

Hundreds of substandard, unclassed, uninsured vessels are routinely hauling Russian oil internationally while avoiding any serious oversight, so why are governments looking the other way and pretending the dark fleet is invisible?

Shipping’s climate negotiations are a high stakes game of poker, where governments will be looking to make deals in exchange for compromises. It makes little strategic sense to show your hand this early in the game, but real progress can be achieved in the next three months

UK minimum wage will be extended to seafarers, while Labour is committing to a ‘Seafarers’ Charter’. Neither would have happened without the P&O Ferries’ shocking actions

An industry that routinely allowed garbage to be dumped overboard until just 10 years ago needs to get with the programme

The pandemic was neatly bookended by TPM conferences in 2020 and 2023. The new set of challenges faced by container shipping, however, have a familiar ring

It is pointless admonishing owners to act like conscience-stricken peaceniks. Where there is a legal buck to be made, somebody will make it. But the mark is overstepped by breaking sanctions, or facilitating others to do so

Next week sees the first anniversary of the Russian invasion. There should be no second anniversary

The Russian price cap could easily see some shipowners who try to stay just within the rules find themselves just outside them

It will be some time yet before we can know the consequences for certain. Whatever they are, there is little alternative to living with them

War-torn Yemen could soon face environmental degradation of a degree as large as any witnessed in recent decades. Shipping will not be to blame. But collective intervention from shipping is the last best hope of preventing it

The transition to net zero needs the emergence of a Field of Dreams’ factor. If you build methanol-bunkering terminals, will they come?