What does China’s unassailable lead in terms of naval power, the wording of recent US statutes and the adaptability of shipping, all have to do with how a chief financial officer eats their breakfast?

It’s all about how shipping perceives risk and uncertainty right now.

Uncertainty has dominated the shipping industry in the past months.

But this narrative that shipowners are paralysed by the geopolitical volatility is only part of the story.

The global economy is at a crossroads. We are entering an era of superpower rivalry between the US and China that will fundamentally upend established trading assumptions and fragment shipping down geopolitical lines.

Now, depending on who you are talking to, the response to that uncertainty results in either a barely concealed fist-bump of joy as they mentally run through the profitable opportunities ahead, or near term paralysis as they conclude that there is no value in strategic investment in the face of such unknowable odds.

And that’s because this isn’t just the long -term disintegration of a rules-based order that we are talking about, although that is part of it.

Near term that uncertainty is created by the fact that it is now security not economics that is driving the bus when it comes to US decision making, and that’s confusing everyone.

Agility is the new currency for shipping. We have to adapt to all these challenges – shipping’s bullish elite told us.

Volatility is the lifeblood of profitable shipping and certainty has never been a prerequisite for making decisions. So, why complain about exogenous shocks now?

On stage, the message was defiant: shipowners paralysed by the geopolitical swings risk losing out.

Off stage, their commitment to specific questions of progress and investment was generally more hesitant.

But they still need to make decisions – and that’s the focus of this week’s podcast.

Joining Richard this week on the podcast are:

Øystein Tunsjø, Professor of International Relations, Head of Security in Asia Program, Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, Norwegian Defence University College

Brian Maloney, Partner, Seward & Kissel

Annicken Kildahl, CFO, Grieg Maritime Group

Hing Chao, Executive Chairman, Wah Kwong Maritime Transport

Efficiency is good business.

Forget any lofty notions of environmental altruism for the moment. Burning less fuel, emitting less CO2 that just makes sense financially speaking.

Except, that in shipping, inefficiency can often bring opportunity. Arbitrage and trading optionality is often a bigger, more profitable pull away from strict notions of carbon reduction.

Emissions regulation is about compliance not profit. And that has generally speaking been the attitude in shipping while we have been talking conceptually.

But carbon pricing is no longer a distant regulatory threat — it’s already impacting shipping and trading, even if the majority of shipping is either not ready or in the case of 60% of you missed the first regulatory hurdle of submitting verified emissions reports.

The European Union is leading the charge, with the EU Emission Trading System and FuelEU Maritime adding an estimated $6.1bn to industry costs in 2025 alone.

The IMO’s Greenhouse Gas Fuel Intensity (GFI) measure is set to join the mix from 2028, driving up costs even further.

Shipowners and charterers could be staring down a combined carbon bill approaching $50bn by 2030 in a business-as-usual scenario.

These surging costs will ripple through supply chains, driving up freight rates, influencing fuel choices, and potentially reshaping global trade patterns.

Carbon pricing has moved from a regulatory abstraction to an immediate financial reality and that’s what we are talking about in this edition of the Lloyd’s List podcast.

We have two speakers who offer an instructive view on what is, and isn’t, happening right now.

Sigmund Kyvik is the CEO of Siglar Carbon – a data-led business that offers emissions insights that cut carbon and costs.

Robert Hvide Macleod is a former chief executive of tanker giant Frontline, but he’s also an active investor in Siglar and is someone who has spotted the financial opportunity in managing carbon efficiency.

The global shipping fleet is getting older, but it is also getting more dangerous.

As freight rates surged in a tonne-miles driven market, many shipowners delayed scrapping older vessels, which put seafarers, cargo and the environment at greater risk.

The industry must now act decisively to improve safety standards amid an ageing fleet, argues the class society DNV who have used Lloyd’s List Intelligence casualty data to analyse the trends.

Lloyd’s List editor-in-chief Richard Meade sat down with Knut Ørbeck-Nilssen, CEO of DNV Maritime, on the sidelines of the Nor-Shipping event being held in Oslo this week to discuss what this means and what can be done about it

IN a market where free trade is under threat and geopolitical tensions are escalating, decisions get deferred, investment gets scaled back and doing nothing starts being passed off as pragmatic stewardship.

There’s no value in making long-term decisions right now.

Or is there?

For this week’s podcast we want you to put your cynicism on hold and let our editor-in-chief Richard Meade pitch you the optimist’s view.

While other industries’ green zeal has withered, shipping has found itself in the unexpected, and slightly uncomfortable position of being a climate leader, rather than a laggard.

Even with some of the key details (reward factors, green classifications) still far off, there is an optimist case to assert that shipping actually now has a clear direction of travel when it comes to decarbonisation investment.

If the IMO’s target of a 65% cut in fuel GHG intensity by 2040 is to be achieved, a fuel revolution is the only option.

The rules don’t yet tell us how to do that. But cutting carbon intensity by that much is only really possible with a few ways, which brings us to synthetic, green e-fuels. A longer, slower transition leaves time to solve practical problems, and to explore technologies like nuclear.

Shipowners have time to work out with some degree of confidence how far they can move ahead with what they have now.

They know LNG-fuelled vessels look good in the early years, but ammonia-fuelled orders look better beyond 2028.

They know they’ll have to wait longer for that fuel, since MEPC83 did a poor job of incentivising its production. But that’s where the optimism and faith in a long horizon comes in.

The necessary greenwashing backlash injected some realism into shipping’s sustainability debate and MEPC83 offered the beginnings of some tangible certainties, with the promise of more to come.

There is much yet to be clarified, but the case for optimism is worth listening to – and that’s what we are offering this week with the resolutely rosey thinkers at the Global Maritime Forum.

On this week’s edition of the Lloyd’s List Podcast you will hear:

• Johannah Christensen, CEO, Global Maritime Forum

• Jesse Fahnestock, Director of Decarbonisation, Global Maritime Forum

• Stephen Fewster, Treasurer, Poseidon Principles and Global Lead Shipping Finance at ING Bank

In 2021, the International Maritime Organisation, together with the Women's International Shipping & Trading Association, launched a survey to collect some hard data on female representation in the global maritime industry.

The second edition of the survey was published last week to coincide with International Day for Women in Maritime 2025 (which was celebrated on May 18th).

But the results were hardly cause for celebration.

Because while some progress has been made in terms of gender diversity in the maritime industry, the data in the 2024 edition suggests shipping is going backwards.

The results of the 2024 edition showed 176,820 women working in maritime across both private and public sectors, an increase of 14% from the 151,979 recorded in 2021.

But the global maritime workforce has grown considerably since the last survey, which means women now account for just under 19% of the workforce sampled, versus 26% in 2021.

Female employees make up just over 16% of the workforce in the private sector, compared to the 29% recorded in 2021, and a drop was also seen in female representation in mid-management positions, declining to just 20% in 2024 from 39% in 2021.

Lloyd’s List reporter Joshua Minchin spoke to three female leaders in the shipping industry, including Wista president Elpi Petraki, to get their reaction to the survey results and ask whether in a time where DEI programmes are coming increasingly under threat, shipping needs to rethink its own diversity strategy.

Joining Joshua on the podcast this week are:

Elpi Petraki, president of Wista International

Louise Proctor, deputy director, sub-division for planning and programming, Technical Cooperation and Implementation Division, IMO

Heidi Heseltine, chief executive, Diversity Study Group

Last year, both Belgium and the Netherlands, home to the key ports of Antwerp-Bruges and Rotterdam, reported a dramatic decline in the volume of cocaine seized.

As the traditional gateways into Europe for legal as well as illegal cargo, this is surely cause for celebration, or at the very least a pat on the back.

The only problem? Seizures in Portugal, Italy, Greece and other southern European countries increased. Which begs the question, how on earth do you stop smuggling?

Lloyd’s List reporter Joshua Minchin again speaks to four experts at the very frontline in the fight against smuggling to understand how public-private cooperation can identify high-risk containers and push back against what can seem like an incessant tide.

Plus, UNODC’s Bob van den Berghe explains how work in source countries can prevent illegal cargo ever getting on board a commercial vessel and strengthen relationships between law enforcement agencies at opposite sides of an ocean.

Joining Joshua on the podcast are:

• Joe Kramek, chief executive, World Shipping Council

• Bob Van den Berghe, deputy head PCCP, UN Office on Drugs and Crime

• Niels Vanlaer, harbour master at the port of Antwerp-Bruges

• Robert Campbell, programme director, United for Wildlife

Think of a product carried by sea, and the most likely things to come to mind are consumer goods, iron ore, coal, or perhaps even bauxite.

But billions of dollars’ worth of illegal narcotics and thousands of species of animal are carried on cargo and containerships every year and smuggled through the world’s biggest ports, particularly in Europe.

Before analysing how shipping can get a grip on this secret trade, Lloyd’s List reporter Joshua Minchin spoke to several experts leading the fight against smuggling to get an idea of just how big of a problem smuggling is in our industry.

Hear how cartels smuggle consignments of rhino horn by the container load and even threaten crew to force them into transporting kilos of cocaine.

Joining Joshua on the podcast are:

Joe Kramek, chief executive, World Shipping Council

Bob Van den Berghe, deputy head PCCP, UN Office on Drugs and Crime

Niels Vanlaer, harbourmaster at the Port of Antwerp-Bruges

Robert Campbell, programme director, United for Wildlife

Earlier this month, the International Maritime Organization agreed its net zero framework at the 83rd meeting of its Marine Environment Protection Committee.

If you’re not sure what was agreed or the impact it will have on shipping, make sure you listen to our MEPC post-mortem episode of the podcast, which is available here.

A lot of shipping’s decarbonisation chips have been placed on e-fuels.

This is where an electrolyser is used to split hydrogen from water and combine that so-called green hydrogen with nitrogen to make ammonia, or CO2 to make synthetic methane or methanol.

E-fuels are by far the most expensive option, but they're also seen as the best way to decarbonise the industry in the long term, but not by everyone.

So are we placing far too much stock in e-fuels? Or can they live up to their salvatory status and deliver shipping to net zero in time?

Joining Declan on the podcast this week are:

Michael Liebreich, Bloomber New Energy Finance founder

Dr Tristan Smith, University College London associate professor in energy and transport

Philosophers have for over two millennia debated the irresistible force paradox, usually formulated as ‘What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?’ Variants of the problem date back as far as China in the third century BCE and ancient Greece.

The world got one answer to the question on March 26, 2024, when a Singapore-flagged boxship hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge that spanned Baltimore harbour in the US.

The vessel was inevitably damaged, the bridge collapsed, and six people from a maintenance crew working on the bridge at the time were killed.

Within days, the owners and managers of Dali filed for limitation of liability. If their suit is successful, Grace Ocean, Synergy Marine and their insurers will pay out no more than $44m.

In this edition of the podcast, Lloyd’s List insurance and law editor David Osler unpacks what happens next in what could turn out to be one of the costliest marine casualties of all time.

On Friday, some 20 years of decarbonisation work at the International Maritime Organization culminated in a historic agreement, with countries voting 63-16 in favour of an emissions fuel standard with a built-in carbon price.

If it Is formally adopted in October, this will be the first binding global carbon price on any industry; a genuinely momentous achievement that will change the future of shipping.

What they’ve come up with is highly complex and is going to take the industry a while to fully digest.

But fear not, we have three brave experts willing to help make sense of it and tell us, hopefully, what comes next.

Marie Fricaudet is a senior research fellow at the UCL Energy Institute

Aoife O’Leary is a lawyer, economist, and the chief executive of Opportunity Green

And Rico Luman, a senior sector economist at ING Bank