From Mitigation to Adaptation: Problematizing Climate Change in the Maritime Transport Industry

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Documents

  • Full Text

    Final published version, 1.64 MB, PDF document

The literature on climate change in the maritime transport industry has grown rapidly in the last few years. Yet as the research agenda has progressed, scientific debates have become more isolated and fragmented, making it difficult to translate new findings into broader policy debates. This article draws on problematization methodology to help organize the scientific debate on maritime emissions and to identify analytical gaps and challenges. We argue that scholars investigate shipping's emission problem from four distinct analytical perspectives— (1) international laws and regulations, (2) markets and economics, (3) engineering and technology, and (4) authority and legitimacy. Each of these perspectives problematizes maritime emissions in specific ways, leading to different policies and strategies to address the problem. We call for better integrating these four literatures and highlight three crosscutting areas and problems for future research. First, developing institutions that facilitate market and engineering solutions; second, integrating climate mitigation and adaptation research; and third, focusing on justice concerns to ensure an equitable green transition in the maritime industry.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere894
JournalWIREs Climate Change
ISSN1757-7780
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 18 Jun 2024

ID: 396006137