New research shows Pacific Island countries have received more than US$700 million worth of donated ships over the past decade, but almost all of those vessels rely on diesel engines and only a single low‑carbon ship is in operation, prompting calls for a regional shift in donor and procurement rules to speed decarbonisation of domestic shipping.
The finding comes from work by the Micronesian Centre for Sustainable Transport, which is building what it says will be the first comprehensive database of shipping projects and investments across the Pacific. “We’ve been tracking a number of shipping projects across the Pacific, but this is the first time we’ve tried to build a comprehensive database of all known investments across the sector,” said Dr Peter Nuttall, scientific advisor at the Marshall Islands government research centre. He warned that preliminary results show more than 95 per cent of new domestic ship deployments are diesel‑powered with little or no design emphasis on fuel efficiency.
The database — still under construction — aims to overcome fragmented reporting and multiple agencies involved in vessel gifts, loans and purchases around the region. Researchers say standardising reporting and capturing the technical specifications of new vessels will make it easier to measure emissions, identify where efficient technologies can be applied and direct scarce climate finance toward higher‑impact interventions.
Pacific governments already have ambitious national targets for shipping emissions, but meeting them will require new finance and policy direction. The Marshall Islands and Fiji have set domestic reduction goals — a 40 per cent cut by 2030 and net zero by 2050 — contingent on access to appropriate financing. Regional experts say those targets will be hard to meet while nearly all donated domestic vessels continue to arrive with conventional diesel powerplants.
Concrete demonstrations suggest much larger gains are possible. Initial operational results from the SV Juren Ae prototype indicate savings of more than 60 per cent are achievable using currently mature technologies, Nuttall said. He pointed to the $30 million ADB‑funded MV Manu Sina, a new ship for Tuvalu, as an example where different design choices could have substantially lowered national emissions if efficiency measures had been prioritised at procurement.
To accelerate change, researchers and industry advisers are proposing a Pacific Islands‑endorsed policy that would require any new vessels donated to the region to be at least 40 per cent more fuel‑efficient than the ships they replace. Proponents argue such a rule would be the quickest and least costly way to cut emissions from domestic shipping, shifting the onus onto donors and financiers to adopt better design standards and proven low‑carbon technologies.
The push comes as regional partners have been criticised for moving slowly on the “hard‑to‑abate” domestic shipping sector, even as more money flows in for climate and resilience projects. Building the database and instituting minimum efficiency requirements for donated vessels are being framed as practical, near‑term steps to ensure incoming investments do not lock Pacific nations into high‑emissions fleets for decades.
With the database still being finalised, researchers say the next stages will quantify emission savings potential across the fleet, map financing shortfalls and engage donors and development banks on revised procurement criteria. If adopted widely, the 40 per cent efficiency benchmark could quickly reorient how development funding for ships is designed and delivered across the Pacific.