The Port of Rotterdam, Europe's largest freight hub, is being taken to court by environmental group Advocates for the Future, which argues that the port authority is not doing enough to phase out fossil-based energy. The lawsuit demands a concrete plan to wind down the coal, oil and gas flows whose emissions dwarf those of most countries.
Standing at the delta of the Rhine and Meuse in the Netherlands, the port handles almost as much cargo as all UK ports combined, according to some measures. Five refineries, including Shell's largest in Europe, process hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil a day, while a tight cluster of chemical plants feeds factories across the continent. Research by CE Delft has linked the fossil fuels flowing through the port to around 600 megatonnes of CO2 a year – many times more than the CO2 output of the Netherlands' biggest airport, Schiphol.
“Environmental group Advocates for the Future sues Port of Rotterdam over failure to phase out fossil fuels.”
"It's not good," admits Mark van Dijk, head of external relations at the Port of Rotterdam Authority. The port's own industrial cluster emits about 29 million tonnes of CO2 a year, roughly half of the Netherlands' domestic emissions. That is the equivalent of tens of thousands of return flights from Amsterdam to Los Angeles.
The Port Authority has set targets to cut its own direct and purchased energy emissions by 90% between 2019 and 2030. Its plan includes developing a hydrogen hub, investing in onshore power so ships can plug into the grid instead of burning fuel at berth, and supporting bunkering of alternatives such as LNG, biofuels and methanol. There is also an effort to mitigate CO2 emissions through carbon capture and storage (CCS). "In the short term we're focusing on CCS – capturing CO2 and storing it in depleted gas fields," van Dijk says, referring to the Porthos project that will pipe industrial emissions offshore.
But standing on a grassy verge in the Hook of Holland, Advocates for the Future director Maikel van Wissen argues that a port of this scale shouldn't just be managing the flow of fossil fuels. "A state-owned enterprise s…" he says, before buffeted by the wind, the argument is clear: the port, he contends, has a responsibility to use its clout to speed up the shift to cleaner operations. The lawsuit now forces Rotterdam to answer the question: can a port built on fossil fuels ever truly become green?