Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent discussions he has held with representatives of the maritime industry about that industry's role in contributing towards the UK's Net Zero targets.
Answered by Robert Courts
Officials and I regularly engage the maritime industry on all matters that concern them, including reducing the sector’s emissions, as decarbonising shipping is essential to achieve the target of net zero greenhouse gases across the economy by 2050.
We continue to work with the maritime industry as part of the Clean Maritime Council to implement the Clean Maritime Plan, which outlines the UK’s pathway to zero carbon emissions in domestic maritime. The Council recently discussed the Prime Minister’s announcement of a £20m Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition to develop clean maritime technology.
Further plans on the decarbonisation of the maritime sector will be included in the Transport Decarbonisation Plan, to be published in the spring next year.
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent discussions he has held with representatives of UK ports about upgrading their green infrastructure.
Answered by Robert Courts
The Department has regular meetings with ports and their trade representatives on a range of issues including green infrastructure at ports. Most recently, I met with board members of the UK Major Ports Group on the 19th of November. The discussion included decarbonisation and green infrastructure.
UK ports and the UK domestic maritime sector that rely on our ports, are covered by the Net Zero 2050 target and our national carbon budgets under the Climate Change Act.
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent discussions he has had with representatives of the UK maritime industry on his Department's support for clean maritime.
Answered by Robert Courts
My officials and I regularly engage the maritime industry on all matters that concern them, including reducing the sector’s emissions, as decarbonising shipping is essential to achieve the target of net zero greenhouse gases across the economy by 2050.
The Clean Maritime Council recently discussed the Prime Minister’s announcement of a £20m Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition to develop clean maritime technology.
Before this initiative, the Department funded a £1.5m competition for innovation in clean maritime and provided £193,897 in grant support through the Department’s Transport Technology Research Innovation Grant Programme to early stage research projects related to clean maritime. Details of the grant winners are available, respectively, on the MarRI-UK website[1] and on GOV.UK[2].
[1] https://www.marri-uk.org/funding-opportunities/clean-maritime-call/clean-maritime-call-winners
Asked by: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions his Department has had with representatives of the maritime sector on the role that decarbonising the maritime sector can play in reaching net zero by 2050.
Answered by Robert Courts
The domestic maritime sector falls under the UK’s national net zero target, and in common with the wider economy will need to be decarbonised by 2050 in order to achieve net zero.
The Department has regular meetings with industry and civil society representatives on the issue of decarbonisation, to discuss both domestic Net Zero and the international work to address GHG emissions being undertaken at the International Maritime Organization.