Climate Risks in Shipping

CLIMA Lunch Seminar with Ana Stella Ebbersmeyer, Beatriz Martinez Romera and Hannah Mosmans.

Abstract

This seminar will examine the climate-related transition risks facing maritime transport as it moves toward decarbonization. Drawing on a systematic literature review, it identifies five interlinked risk categories - litigation, policy, contractual, technological, and social - and explores their compounding effects. Using ammonia as a case study, the presentation will illustrate how regulatory uncertainty, innovation, and public perception shape risk profiles. Emphasis is placed on the need for coordinated legal and policy responses to support a resilient, low-carbon maritime sector.

About the speakers

Stella is a Postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Climate Change Law and Governance (CLIMA), Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen. She is interested in international climate change and environmental law, maritime law and law of the sea as well as Arctic governance. Stella holds an LLB in International and European Law (Honour's) from the University of Groningen and an LLM and PhD from the University of Copenhagen. She defended her PhD thesis entitled Regulating Black Carbon Emissions from Arctic Shipping: The Role of Non-State Actors in International Law-Making in December 2024. Supervisor: Associate Prof. Beatriz Martinez Romera.

Beatriz Martinez Romera is an Associate Professor of Environmental and Climate Change Law at the Centre for Climate Change Law and Governance (CLIMA), Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen. She holds a PhD on the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from international aviation and maritime transport. Her research interests coalesce around issues of environmental and climate change law and governance. Since 2018, she has supervised PhD projects.

Hannah Mosmans is a researcher specialized in port economics and maritime law at Erasmus UPT. She started out as a research assistant in 2021 and she has continued as a junior researcher since 2022. Currently, Hannah is also an external PhD-researcher at Erasmus School of Law. Her PhD project, titled “Balancing Economics and Law for Alternative Fuels in Shipping,” aims to develop a liability framework for compensating pollution damage from ships utilizing and transporting alternative fuels.

Registration

Register for the seminar. Zoom link is provided upon registration.