Climate emergency and global shipping : charting new governance routes through analogical reasoning
Date of Award
2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy in Maritime Affairs
Specialization
Ph.D (Maritime Affairs)
Campus
Malmö, Sweden
Abstract
This research aims to examine the impacts of the climate emergency on global shipping through analogical reasoning. The study began by analysing the impact of the climate emergency on global shipping, specifically examining variables that affect overall international shipping delivery, including infrastructure, economic, and social implications. However, due to the paucity of empirical data, the study relied on analogical analysis, a well-established theoretical approach primarily applied in cognitive sciences. It retrieved inferences from the COVID-19 (source) and proposes global shipping attributes (target), applying structure mapping theory and knowledge transfer mechanism. The study employs four distinct methods: an expert survey, a systematic literature review, the Delphi method, and semi- structured interviews. The initial results identified eight key variables for global shipping that are impacted by the climate emergency, including global change in marine traffic, volume of trade in goods, changes in international freight rates, global supply chain connectivity, passenger and crew mobility, fulfilment of contractual obligations, restrictions on movement, and human well-being. It further identified climate adaptation policies under a climate emergency scenario, including cargo and vessel mobility, emergency management, resilience, risk management, autonomous integration, crisis management, international cooperation, stakeholder engagement, lockdown policies, digital integration, sustainability, and supportive measures. The research concluded by suggesting fifteen climate adaptation policies around three primary critical areas including material/ physical, systemic and normative, validated through a Delphi method. The study acknowledges the significant achievement of the IMO in aligning international shipping climate mitigation goals to the Paris Agreement. However, it emphasized the fragmented, reactive, and weakly institutionalized adaptation governance in global shipping compared to mitigation and proposes key elements of implementation, coordination, and communication for climate adaptation governance for global shipping. The research contributions include a theoretical contribution in the application of analogical reasoning in adaptation governance development, the application of systematic review in source analogs identification,
Comments
To be published
978-91-990758-8-4 (ISBN)
10.21677/251203 (DOI)