2024: 'No silver bullet' as the trickle becomes the flood

As 2024 draws to a close, we see that the drafting of international trade into our assorted geopolitical drivel has been a roaring success. Come January, Donald Trump, a man who has made explicit his intention to revive 17^th century mercantilism, will fit right in. The embarrassing spectacle of COP29 made it clear that Saudi Arabia, among other countries, is ready to see a world in flames before it sees a reduction in oil and gas sales.

Ukraine fights on, knowing it will soon be strong-armed into a grisly stalemate by Putin’s Washington mates. The UN, meanwhile, resolves that what is going on in Gaza is categorically genocide, while European countries, with the exception of Spain and The Netherlands, have resolved not to let this affect their arms sales. China is consolidating its dominance in shipbuilding and renewables production, bombarding the market with dirt-cheap fast-fashion, and getting ready to deal with whatever hurdles ‘the west’ has in store, while menacing Taiwan and playing silly buggers with anchors and cables in the Baltic.

All this can give us reason to feel jaded at the close of 2024. But a reaction is inevitable in the face of progress. Trump and Musk will be dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and destroying or hamstringing other agencies in the hope of making the US a business free-for-all.

But a free for what, exactly? The throne to which he ascends today is not the same one as that of 2016. The popular canonisation of a handsome CEO-killer shows the public, this time around, will not be too razzmatazzed to notice the price of eggs. Observe Trump’s stilted embrace of the ILA, echoing his weird courtship of the Teamsters during the campaign, in an attempt to co-opt the issue and blame everything on ‘foreign companies’ – which, deviously, have set up US headquarters and listed on the NASDAQ to cover their tracks.

Compelled to pick a side, businesses can either position themselves as explicitly ‘anti-woke’, guaranteeing a small, dedicated customer base who watch like hawks, AR-15s in hand, for the slightest sign of ‘DEI’; or court international markets and get investing in ESG and renewable energy – an easy choice for most.

And no amount of culture war bickering will stop an unheard-of climate event obliterating a community every so often; even Darren Woods, the CEO of Exxon Mobil, took on a schoolmasterly aspect as he told Baku to get on with it.

In shipping, the air is one of a group of business associates in a jostling fast-walk, having gradually recognised they are in a race. Not only is there a deluge of methanol and LNG-fuelled vessels on the way, but existing ships are being retrofitted with new methanol tanks; decarbonisation is no longer something to pledge to eventually to get around to, but something actually to be done.

Until recently, the consensus among shipping lines was to wait and see which new carbon-neutral fuel would arrive to solve everything at a stroke. Today, instead, we are hearing the phrase “no silver bullet” repeated endlessly, a plurality of fuel choices and bow windshields, carbon capture and even sails making their way onto vessels. The smaller vessel segments might even be colonised by battery-powered feeders of 100 teu or less – a move which would allow shipping to increase its share in the supply chain.

There are signs that this approach is paying off. Perhaps it was the Ever Given that did it, or perhaps the Red Sea Crisis; but the industry has never been so visible, at least in your correspondent’s experience. Skewed coverage in the press, images of ship funnels emitting scary black smoke and headlines about dirty secrets ‘they’ don’t want you to know seem to have given way to an understanding that, yes, there is a carbon cost associated with moving 90% of everything on Earth, and yes, it is being addressed.

It did not take much for shipping to emerge as an unexpected climate leader. The usefulness of this is debatable, given shipping makes up just 11% of emissions from transport. But, nonetheless, public scrutiny seems to be turning elsewhere. If it isn’t ire over Taylor Swift’s private jet, it is the backlash against Shein and Temu; the drop-shipping enshittification of Amazon purchases that has turned them into Wish.com-style gambles in an attempt to compete; or the scrambling effort by governments to get a handle on any of it. ‘Shop like a billionaire’ and have your Minions pencil-case brought to you on a Boeing 747.

We can’t go on like this. Nor will we. Now completely untenable, on its face as the world is assailed by unprecedented storms and weather events, climate denialism has morphed into climate-hostility. Climate people are shrill, or unattractive, or perhaps too attractive; they are too rich, or perhaps they want everyone to be poor like them; they are terrorists, or shills, or hypocrites; but not wrong, per se.

Turbines, batteries and solar panels could bring manufacturing back to US shores, but monster pick-up trucks costing twice the average salary, and punitive tariffs on the more economical vehicles US builders refuse to make, will not. Harnessing offshore wind could turn the UK into a clean energy-exporting powerhouse; ‘scrapping net zero’ will not. Shunning EVs will not protect Germany’s car industry, or reduce its reliance on Russian fossil fuels.

Having already surpassed the threshold of subsidy-free installations in Northern Europe and elsewhere, as we move into 2025 the growth of renewable energy continues to increase, posing vast economic benefit for those countries embracing it. Leaders of those remaining will need to work increasingly hard on their justifications, if they want to keep fighting it off.