The World Ports Climate Action Program (WPCAP) will join the International Association of Ports and Harbours’ (IAPH) Climate and Energy Committee to bolster work on decarbonisation and sustainable fuels.
WPCAP was founded in 2018 as a working group to promote decarbonisation at ports and terminal facilities worldwide, working closely with IAPH. The group was founded with the objective of reducing CO2 emissions and improving air quality at major ports, including Rotterdam, Antwerp-Bruges, Barcelona, Gothenburg, Hamburg, Vancouver, and Los Angeles.
According to the group, WPCAP’s work with these ports was intended to demonstrate to the maritime industry and regulators that bolder climate action as well as more attention on local air quality was necessary and that ports have an important contribution to make towards this goal.
The merger was announced at the IAPH World Ports Conference 2024, 8-10 October in Hamburg. The integration of WPCAP’s initiatives into the IAPH committee will be completed by January 2025.
Patrick Verhoeven, IAPH Managing Director, said: “We look forward to the pooling of resources within the IAPH Climate and Energy Technical Committee which will further focus inclusive efforts of both large and small ports worldwide on industry decarbonisation.
“We shall continue to aim at ensuring all ports have the necessary tools and safety procedures to accelerate power to ship solutions at berth, facilitate port calls by ships using new fuels, enable port to select bunkering operators effectively and standardise bunkering protocols, terminal readiness and future ship-to-shore alternative fuel cargo transfer standards across the industry.”
Eric van de Schans, Director Environmental Management at Port of Rotterdam added: “With a new ambitious IMO GHG Strategy in place, an onshore power mandate within Europe and the development of the Port Readiness Level methodology to communicate alternative fuel readiness for our ports, I think WPCAP has helped to create three successes that made it possible and also logical that today we integrate these activities within IAPH. As leading ports we will continue to push with IAPH to deliver on climate action and local air quality improvements.”
Source: IAPH