The shipping company Hapag-Lloyd has to accept temporary setbacks in the CO2 reduction of its fleet due to the major detours around the Red Sea, but is sticking to its goal of climate neutrality by 2045.

"I don't think we should change our long-term goals because of this," said Group CEO Rolf Habben Jansen at an online press conference on Wednesday. Even if it is difficult to predict when freighters can be safely sent through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal again, this is a temporary situation. "However, the reality is that we have to temporarily accept higher emissions than originally planned in the current operation," admitted Habben Jansen.

Like many international rivals, Germany's largest container shipping company has been avoiding the Red Sea since mid-December, where merchant ships are repeatedly attacked by Houthi rebels. But it is not only the detour around the southern tip of Africa that means more CO2 emissions due to the longer voyage. More freighters are also being deployed and the ships are sailing faster in order to meet the recent significant increase in customer demand despite the longer sailing times between Asia and Europe and North America. Habben Jansen emphasized that he will nevertheless stick to the short-term sustainability target. The world's fifth-largest shipping company has pledged to reduce its absolute greenhouse gas emissions by around a third by 2030 and to achieve a net-zero fleet by 2045.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has set a target for maritime transport to become climate-neutral "around 2050". According to the Federal Environment Agency, traffic on the world's oceans is responsible for around 2.6 percent of CO2 emissions. Decarbonization is also considered to be one of the key challenges of the future in the shipping industry. However, the crisis in the Red Sea is currently dominating events in the industry, which is responsible for transporting around 80 percent of global trade volumes.

The situation that existed during corona is being repeated here on a smaller scale: In some ports, especially in China and other Asian countries, ships are jammed, empty containers are stranded and are sometimes in short supply elsewhere. Demand and bookings have increased significantly. However, the detour via the southern tip of Africa not only causes delays, higher costs and greater CO2 emissions. Freight rates are rising, so shipping companies can charge higher fees for their services.

"We have seen solid demand, especially since May 1, which has also been met with limited availability due to the situation in the Red Sea," said Habben Jansen. Spot prices therefore continued to rise in the second quarter. In view of the current situation, it is good that many new ships are currently being put into service. The detours would tie up five to nine percent of global container freighter capacity. It had previously been feared that there could be overcapacity in the industry. Habben Jansen continues to hope for an end to the crisis in the Red Sea before the end of the year, but is somewhat less optimistic in this respect than before.

(Report by Elke Ahlswede and Vera Eckert, edited by Rald Banser. If you have any queries, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)