Globalization indicates a wider and broader outlook in regards to the opening of local and nationalistic perspectives to a unified and co-dependent world with simplified and free transfer of capital, goods, and services within countries.
According to Kumar and Hoffmann, “Transportation has been called one of the four cornerstones of globalisation, along with communications, international standardization, and trade liberalization” (Kumar and Hoffmann, 2002). Maritime transport has a fundamental role in the economy around the world and it is estimated that over 90% of the world’s trade is transported by sea. Over the past decades the maritime industry is becoming more and more globalised, and as the countries expand their borders by trading and investing in foreign markets, the economy grows rapidly as well as the competition, which results in the adoption of new strategies, which have major impact on the maritime industry.
“It has been said that arguing against globalisation is like arguing against the laws of gravity” (Annan, K). In order for the maritime industry to be able to serve the demands of globalisation, it has transformed and developed its technologies, labour resources and national registries over the past decades. Those changes show that globalisation has had various impacts in the international maritime industry, and those effects that globalisation has in the international maritime industry, will be the main focus of the essay. The movement of goods by sea and the design of networks will be discussed as well as the impact that this has on the maritime industry. . Furthermore, we shall examine the way shipping drives the economy by increasing the demands and the response that the industry has towards globalisation. Another topic that will be analysed are the consequences globalization had on the environment and the ecosystems internationally and locally, and mention ways that the maritime industry can follow to contribute to globalized markets without having a negative impact on the environment.
The movement of goods by sea is one of the most important elements when it comes to freight transportation systems that consists of various alternative modes of transport such as transport by air, road and rail. The shipping transportation system connects locations by different ways that can function as alternatives. For instance, pre-carriage of a containerized cargo to a seaport using truck, followed by the main carriage to a seaport in another country by vessel and reaching the final destination by rail. The international transportation has developed significantly during the last decades with the use of at least two different transportation modes, known as intermodal transportation which is about using separate modes together in the most dynamic method, which so far has resulted in an improvement of the economic performance of the transportation system. Europe is the second highest in mode share and around 40% tonne-kilometres of the freight is moved by shortsea shipping. Apart from being a reliable method of movement of goods by sea, shortsea shipping is also environmentally friendly, less prone to any damages and much more cost efficient than road transport is.
Maritime transportation has a vital role in the global economy. The world has become more prosperous and several countries are now able to participate in world trade because of the international shipping transportation. The transport infrastructure that is transported in the maritime industry from factories to terminals to distribution centres and the way they interact with the maritime sector by been placed in key locations is very important for the function of markets involved in the transportation network around the deep-sea services and therefore maritime transportation is an essential complement as well as an alternative for other modes of freight transportation. Global transportation services are necessary due to the fact that resources and goods are not always in the place where the populations may desire them, and this is where transportation “steps in”. Furthermore, another development that illustrates the importance of globalisation in the economy is the design of containerization for various merchandises in order to deliver cargoes in raw or semi-raw condition to as much closer to the markets, a development that significantly reduced the sizes in crew and labour requirements, as well as the cost of ocean cargo transport. Moreover, with globalisation, the industries were able to identify markets around the world that offer lower manufacturing costs for semi-raw goods and products. A good example is products such as electronic devices that most of the times are manufactured in a continent, such as China, where manufacture costs are lower even though they were designed in another continent such as the United States.
Logistics has an increasingly important role in the global economy. Firstly, logistics is defined as the sequence of actions that are been taken for goods to become available on the markets such as the purchase, the processing and the transportation. As the manufacture of various products increased, maritime transportation systems had to adapt to the new changes and therefore various positive outcomes came out. Firstly, the efficiency in transportation productivity expanded and the improvements in technology especially for intermodal transportation gave access to a more developed connection between different transportation modes.
An innovation that changed things towards the better in the maritime industry and played a vital role in the economy, is the switch from coal to oil that is now been used in the engines of the vessels, which apart from reducing costs it has also improved the vessel performance significantly. From that change, a cargo “could save 78% in fuel and gain 30 per cent in cargo space by the adoption of the internal combustion propulsion and practically get rid of stokers and engineers” (Yergin, 2008). Following the change in the fuel, more fuel efficient marine engines were implemented, and this had also a positive outcome as it resulted in increasing the efficiency of engines to over 50 per cent (Corbett, 2004).
However, the impacts that globalisation has on the maritime industry are not always positive and they do not always bring positive outcomes. Instead, globalisation came with several negative energy and environmental impacts. Marine engine technologies that were initially developed in order to reduce fuel consumption, resulted in increased air pollution along with waterborne transportation and also contribute negatively to climate change on a global measure (Corbett and Koehler, 2004). Moreover, ballast water that is been discharged by ships can impact negatively the environment as it contains a number of bacteria that can damage the ecosystems and also cause human health issues . Oil spills consist one of the most common way of ship pollution and unfortunately have shocking effects in the environment and the marine life due to the fact that they are high in toxicity and stay in the marine environment for years as it is almost impossible to be cleaned up once discharged in the water. Another negative impact that globalisation has in the environment according to the International Maritime Organization, are the discharges from carbon dioxide which are expected to rise 50 per cent to 250 per cent if no actions are been taken to prevent the discharges . Also, the garbage that many people used to think that disappears in the ocean, can be as deadly as oil or chemical pollution in the marine environment and it is found in many places in the ocean due to the fact that ships most of the times find it more convenient to throw garbage in the ocean rather that disposing it in the ports.
In summary, several studies, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), indicate that the ship discharges will eventually lead to a net global cooling. Most of the chemicals and oils that are been discharged by the ships have led to a dramatic climate change and scientists can already prove that the cooling effect is happening in the ocean areas . A phenomenon that will therefore have negative impacts on human health. A summarized examination on the UNCTAD 2016 review will be mentioned in the following paragraphs in order to discuss how the maritime industry will contribute in controlling and maybe eliminating the negative impact that ship transportation has in the environment as this consists the main negative impact of globalisation in the maritime industry.
Despite the overall growth and improvement in the economy that globalised maritime industries have brought, according to the most recent review of UNCTAD 2016, the seaport industry experienced dramatic declines in growth. A major decrease of 85 per cent in growth was seen on the twenty most developed ports by volume, a drop that in the year of 2014 was 6.3 per cent and dropped to 0.9 per cent a year later. Moreover, the twenty most developed container ports showed a 95 per cent decline in growth dropping to as low as 0.5 per cent from 5.6 per cent in one year (UNCTAD, 2016).
However, as per UNCTADstat and as it can be seen from the chart below, goods unloaded had a 23% increase between 2006 and 2016 which can be easily considered as a significant increase. Globalisation is one of the factors that played a vital role in this raise since with globalisation the market became vast and the options unlimited resulting in higher demand and eventually more competition in the transport market.