Sandrine Prioul, edited by Manon Fossat 9:44 a.m., February 10, 2022

The One Ocean Summit international summit opened on Wednesday in Brest to find solutions on the protection of the oceans.

Efforts are indeed necessary and this involves, among other things, limiting maritime pollution caused by large liners.

For this, the objective is therefore to develop zero-emission boats.

Three days to save the oceans, or at least raise awareness among authorities and states about the risks to biodiversity and global warming if they don't make more efforts to take care of the seabed.

This is one of the objectives of the One Ocean Summit which opened on Wednesday in Brest.

Maritime pollution due to large ships, hundreds of thousands of freighters or ocean liners dumping tons of heavy fuel oil is a major issue.

This is why the international maritime organization now imposes standards on shipowners.

Boats powered by liquefied gas, sailing or hybrid are therefore emerging, and France has already started, as Europe 1 has seen in the west of the country.

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Reduce CO2 emissions by 40% in ten years

"Happy to offer France its first energy transition ferry."

These words are those of Jean-Marc Roué, proudly waving the French flag on his Brittany Ferries company's latest boat, the Salamanca, delivered from China three weeks ago.

The first ferry in France powered by LNG, liquefied natural gas.

"It makes it possible to avoid all atmospheric pollution harmful to human health and to save between 20% and 25% of CO2 emissions", he explains at the microphone of Europe 1.

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Today, in France, only a few container ships are powered by LNG, a methane whose properties will need to be improved.

Innovations and hopes are now turning to hydrogen or sailing, if we agree to reduce the speed of delivery.

The race for decarbonization, hitherto sluggish, has indeed begun, as Caroline Britz, specialist in the merchant navy, explains. 

"There is a framework that is being put in place. Commercial ships - therefore several tens of thousands of ships around the world - must reduce CO2 emissions by 40% in ten years", she asks. .

"It's quite a challenge because we're not going to scrap all the boats. So for the time being, we're really in the process of setting up a tactic to achieve these objectives".

In 2050, the sea is only supposed to welcome zero-emission boats.