Ship emissions accounting in the Port of Singapore – a preliminary analysis for the container ship segment

Abstract

Over the past few decades, shipping has been a key driver in facilitating global trades around the world by transporting commodities and goods from one place to another. This allows resources to be allocated to the best location at the lowest cost. As the demand for such shipping activities increases, many have also raised concerns about the environmental impact on ship emissions, particularly in a port city like Singapore, which handles a large volume of transhipment cargoes yearly. There are two general methods used worldwide to estimate the vessels’ emissions, namely top-down and bottom-up methods. This paper reviews previous emission accounting research and applies bottom-up method to compute emissions from container vessels within the boundaries of the port of Singapore using Automatic Identification System (AIS) data, particularly for the container ship segment. The emission estimation results and insights from this study will serve as a reference and assist the shipping companies and port authorities to supervise the emission and implement measures to reduce them, as part of the continuous effort to achieve net-zero carbon emission by 2050.