The World Shipping Council (WSC) announced the growing support for the US$5 billion research fund aimed to decarbonise the shipping industry as Denmark became the latest to join other major shipping nations in the campaign.

The proposal to create the International Maritime Research and Development Board (IMRB) was submitted to the UN’s International Maritime Organisation (IMO) on 10 March by Georgia, Greece, Japan, Liberia, Malta, Nigeria, Palau, Singapore, and Switzerland.

The WSC said in a statement that Denmark now joins as a co-sponsor, and we expect several other nations to voice their support for the proposal at the next meeting of the IMO Marine Environment Protection Committee in June.

“The sponsoring nations have done a very thorough job, mapping out in detail the framework required to get the R&D programme up and running as quickly as possible. We are very pleased to see Denmark’s support, as one of the leading maritime nations. The IMRB is a crucial step on the path to decarbonise shipping, and we have no time to lose if we are to meet the UN climate goals,” says John Butler, CEO of WSC.

The GHG reductions required to meet the IMO’s 2050 50% reduction and zero-carbon emissions goals will only be achieved if technologies are developed that enable ships to use the zero-carbon fuels that are critical to a transition in the sector.

There are several potential solutions, but the technologies to use these fuels do not yet exist in a scale or form that can be applied to large transoceanic ships. A host of complex technical questions remain to be answered.

The IMRB is an IMO-supervised, industry-financed, US$5 billion programmes that will drive the progress needed to build a zero-carbon shipping industry.