Officials from the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach signed a memorandum of understanding Monday to establish a green shipping corridor between Singapore and the San Pedro Bay ports complex.
The green and digital shipping corridor aims to support the transition to low-and zero-emission fuels for ships calling at Singapore and the San Pedro Bay ports complex. The parties will work to facilitate the supply and adoption of these fuels and explore the necessary infrastructure and regulations for bunkering.
In addition, the memorandum aims to identify digital shipping solutions and develop standards and best practices for green ports and the bunkering of alternative marine fuels.
“No single port or organization can tackle the challenge of decarbonizing the supply chain alone, no matter how innovative their technology or robust their efforts,” Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka said. “The establishment of this green shipping corridor between the San Pedro Bay complex and Singapore will provide to be a living, breathing testament to the power of global collaboration.”
The memorandum of understanding was supported with the support of C40 Cities, the facilitator of the green and digital shipping corridor, providing support to cities, ports and corridor partners by providing communications support in furtherance of the corridor’s goals.
Mario Cordero, executive director of the Port of Long Beach, said curbing greenhouse gases from international shipping is “essential” to fight global warming.
“Creating this green cooridor with our partner ports and C40 Cities is part of our strategy to coalesce all of our efforts here and beyond to help advance our goals for cleaner marine fuels for oceangoing vessels, improve efficiencies for the global movement of goods, and to achieve a carbon-neutral future.”
Ahead of the revision of the International Maritime Organization’s Initial Strategy for the Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Ships in July, the three ports will come together with C60 Cities network and other stakeholders in the maritime and energy value chains, to jointly accelerate the decarbonization of the maritime industry.
The memorandum also builds on the ports’ long-standing cooperation through platforms such as the Port Authorities’ Roundtable, chainPort, and complements bilateral initiatives between Singapore and the United States such as the U.S.-Sinapore Climate Partnership and the U.S.-Singapore Partnership for Growth and Innovation.
“The signing of this MOU signals our collective will to pool our resources, technical insights, industry and research networks to deliver scalable green as well as digital corridor solutions to help the maritime industry attain the 2050 emission reduction targets expected of the International Maritime Organization and help spur the development of green growth opportunities,” said Teo Eng Dih, chief executive of the Maritime Port Authority of Singapore.