A lawsuit filed by the environmental group Advocates for the Future is demanding that the Port of Rotterdam – Europe’s largest freight hub, handling almost as much cargo as all UK ports combined – moves faster to cut its dependence on fossil fuel companies.
Standing on a grassy verge in the Hook of Holland, overlooking the vast complex at the delta of the Rhine and Meuse, the scale of the challenge is stark. Five refineries, including Shell’s largest in Europe, process hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil a day, feeding factories across the continent.
“Environmental group sues Port of Rotterdam to force faster shift from fossil fuels.”
According to research by CE Delft, the fossil fuels flowing through the port are ultimately linked to around 600 megatonnes of CO2 a year – many times more than the CO2 output of Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport.
The port’s own industrial cluster currently emits about 29 million tonnes of CO2 annually, roughly half of the Netherlands’ domestic emissions, says Mark van Dijk, head of external relations at the Port of Rotterdam Authority. “It’s not good,” he admits.
The Port Authority has a plan to cut its own direct and purchased energy emissions by 90% between 2019 and 2030. It is developing a hydrogen hub, investing in onshore power so ships can plug into the grid instead of burning fuel at berth, and supporting alternatives such as LNG, biofuels and methanol. There is also an effort to capture and store CO2 in depleted gas fields – the Porthos project.
But Advocates for the Future argues this is not enough. Its lawsuit wants a concrete plan to wind down coal, oil and gas flows whose emissions outweigh those of most countries.
“A state-owned enterprise should not just be managing the flow of fossil fuels,” says Maikel van Wissen, director of Advocates for the Future. “It has a responsibility to use its clout to speed up the shift to cleaner operations.”
The legal battle makes Rotterdam a test case for a question ports everywhere must answer: can a place built on fossil fuels ever truly become green?