I wish we’d link to this so we could actually discuss it instead of (or at least on top of) circulating a screenshot of a Bluesky post epically owning the libs fossil fuels.
Edit: Here’s the 2022 UNCTAD report that the IRENA one cites. The metric is “billions of ton-miles”, where a ton-mile is simply, unsurprisingly, a unit of transportation – a ton moved one mile.
Edit 2: Hang on, no, that assumption was faulty, looking at the graph again. The UNCTAD report’s graph only separates out gas and oil, so I have no idea what metric UNCTAD is using when they write:
Around 40 per cent of maritime cargo comprises fossil fuels, so the energy transition will alter the demand for shipping, as well as vessel types and sizes, and the fuels used by ports and ships. Sailing patterns and shipping networks will also need to be reorganized – as will the ports servicing such ships.
Here’s the report Joshi is referencing.
I wish we’d link to this so we could actually discuss it instead of (or at least on top of) circulating a screenshot of a Bluesky post epically owning
the libsfossil fuels.Edit: Here’s the 2022 UNCTAD report that the IRENA one cites.
The metric is “billions of ton-miles”, where a ton-mile is simply, unsurprisingly, a unit of transportation – a ton moved one mile.Edit 2: Hang on, no, that assumption was faulty, looking at the graph again. The UNCTAD report’s graph only separates out gas and oil, so I have no idea what metric UNCTAD is using when they write:
Edit 3: See below.
And this is the source that source references: https://qz.com/2113243/forty-percent-of-all-shipping-cargo-consists-of-fossil-fuels
It’s by weight (in the first paragraph). It also seems to include petrochemicals, though I don’t know how much that affects things.
Appreciate it. Quartz provides a link to UNCTAD’s data, but the link seems to be dead:
https://unctadstat.unctad.org/wds/TableViewer/tableView.aspx?ReportId=32363
Checking this out on the Wayback Machine, it’s a table titled “World seaborne trade by types of cargo and by group of economies”.
Here’s that data from 2025.