Sustainability, externalities and ocean grabbing: Pressing challenges for maritime transport

Abstract

Due to the strategic role of the maritime sector in the world economy, attention should be paid to the changing context in which its activity is carried out. Global shocks, such as COVID-19, or those more specific, such as Brexit, the recent armed conflicts in Ukraine or the Middle East, the growing insecurity in the Red Sea, or extreme natural phenomena resulting from climate change, add to new trends related to the transition towards environmental concerns, the technological revolution, financial swings, trade wars, changes in consumer behaviour or migration processes. All of this, in a simultaneous and interconnected way, is altering economic patterns and consequently having an impact on logistics and maritime transport. New circumstances pose new challenges, and the success of strategies designed to meet them requires a correct diagnosis of the problems to be solved. This work aims to contribute to the analysis of what, in the opinion of the authors, are three major challenges for maritime transport which, moreover, transcend the sector itself: the sustainability of the economic growth model, the privatisation of the use of maritime resources and the absence of a clear alternative fuel to deal with the decarbonisation of the fleet. The identification of these three major challenges resulted from an exhaustive review of the literature, which shifted away from the focus on maritime transport itself to the evolution of its economic, social and environmental context.