This article was published first at Deutsche Verkehrszeitung, DVZ, April 14th 2025: https://www.dvz.de/dossiers/nachhaltigkeit-dossier/detail/news/dekarbonisierung-der-logistik-konzertierte-aktionen-statt-zurueckdraengen.html
Although geopolitics may be diverting political, corporate and media attention from climate change, it continues to be the main existential threat to our civilisation. Last year’s State of the Climate Report observed that ‘we are the brink of an irreversible climate disaster’. There is mounting evidence that the rate of climate change is accelerating, partly because the capacity of natural systems to absorb CO2 is degrading as global temperatures rise. Meanwhile emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) continue to climb relentlessly upwards, with only two minor dips in the trend during the 2007-8 financial crisis and the recent pandemic. The climatic consequences of our failure to control these emissions is all too evident in the 5-fold increase in extreme weather disasters since 1970.
To compound the problem, we now have a US administration dismissive of climate science and withdrawing from international climate agreements. The new head of its Environmental Protection Agency boasts about ‘driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion’ while removing restrictions on the extraction and use of fossil fuels, by far the main source of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. There is a danger that this will encourage wider political and industrial ‘pushback’ against international climate initiatives that need to be urgently implemented.
This is a worrying background against which to chart the progress of logistics decarbonization. Next month the International Transport Forum (ITF) will publish an updated analysis of past and future trends in CO2 emissions from freight transport. This is likely to show emissions continuing to rise sharply, driven mainly by the growth in freight movement. Initiatives that could slow and ultimately reverse the emission trend, some of which have been advocated for many years, are simply not being deployed with sufficient force and scale. Take freight modal shift from road to lower-carbon rail and waterborne services, for example. According to ITF, only 3 of 51 countries managed to reduce their net dependence on trucking over the period 1980-2020. Another key climate mitigation variable is the utilisation of freight transport assets. The very limited data available on vehicle load factors shows little sign of improvement. For instance, in the EU the proportion of truck-kms run empty has been flatlining for over a decade.
On the other hand, there are many positive developments to report, mainly relating to energy use in the logistics sector. The proliferation of fuel and CO2 emission standards for new trucks around the world is reinforcing road freight decarbonisation efforts. Roughly 70% of all trucks sold in 2022 were in countries with such standards. For the foreseeable future the main carbon impact of these standards will be on the fuel efficiency of diesel vehicles, as they will continue to dominate truck fleets well into the 2030s. In Europe, where the adoption to zero-emission heavy trucks is progressing relatively rapidly, they still represented only 1.5% of sales in the last quarter of 2024.
The rate at which freight transport modes decarbonise will largely depend on the ease with which they can be electrified. Rail infrastructure is already extensively electrified and around half of the world’s rail freight hauled by electric locomotives. Battery electrification of vans, mostly on short-distance urban duty cycles, is proceeding rapidly. Now that it is generally accepted that green hydrogen will play little or no part in the decarbonisation of long-haul trucking, the future lies with battery electrification, hopefully supplemented by investment in e-highways along major corridors to permit dynamic charging. Charging vehicles on the move will reduce the weight and cost of their batteries as well as the land required for parking around charging stations.
Green hydrogen will be needed in large quantities as an ingredient in the e-fuels required by shipping and air cargo, modes that cannot be directly electrified and are hence hard-to-abate. While the availability of these e-fuels, and some of the transitional biofuels, remains very limited both in total and in particular locations, ‘book and claim’ systems will be needed to accelerate their uptake. It is encouraging that the development and certification of such systems are well underway.
Another positive trend is the rate at which grid electricity is decarbonising. The International Energy Agency predicts that its average carbon intensity globally will drop from 455 gCO2 per kWh in 2023 to 400 by 2026. Europe is leading the way, with its average currently declining by 13% per annum.
The logistics sector cannot rely solely on the energy transition to deliver the deep reductions in carbon emissions necessary over the next few decades. Opportunities for shifting mode, improving asset utilisation and increasing energy efficiency still need to be prioritised in decarbonisation strategies as they can substantially reduce the sector’s future demand for renewable energy, usually at a lower carbon mitigation cost.
In conclusion, the gravity of the climate crisis demands an intensification of corporate efforts to cut logistics emissions, regardless of whatever climate-sceptical messages emanate from politicians.
