UCL researchers have built an interactive tracker, mapping 1.2 million voyages that show island nations carry outsized port emissions. The tracker draws on a year of data covering voyages by more than 43,000 vessels, UCL said. The research found that around 10% of global maritime emissions occur within port areas. The report noted that the tool offers IMO delegations visibility on which of 575 million tonnes of CO2e emissions generated by international shipping can be attributed to their country’s economic activity.   Seven out of the ten Caribbean, and eight out of the ten East Asia Pacific countries with the highest in-port emissions are small island nations, with emissions often above 20% relative to global and regional averages, said Yoseph Ismail, research assistant at the UCL Shipping and Oceans Research Group.

This share could be reduced through port electrification measures such as cold ironing at berth, switching to battery power while idling or manoeuvring in port, and converting short-sea vessels to battery-electric propulsion, UCL said. Shore-to-ship power, or “cold ironing,” is an electrical power supply provided to ships when they are docked at ports. Instead of running the engines onboard to power essential systems while docked, shore power facilities allow ships to connect to the local electrical grid.

The research comes on the heels of the International Maritime Organization’s upcoming Net-Zero Framework talks scheduled next week. Future updates to the tracker, due in September, will provide statistics on state-level seaborne trade volumes and estimates of the economic impact of proposed amendments to the IMO NZF framework, ahead of a potential adoption later this year.