We live in strange times where you hear incredible things like only stupid people install wind turbines. It’s a time when new wars divert our attention from other crises, such as the climate crisis.
We’re currently witnessing that the green transition is not only being pushed down the agenda, it’s also being directly obstructed. As in autumn 2025, when political forces during negotiations in the UN Maritime Organization, the IMO, split the international unison to work for climate-neutral shipping by 2050.
At DTU, we’re staying true. We still believe that the green transition is important and necessary. This is also reflected in the University’s new strategy for 2026-2031, where we have chosen sustainable technological transition as the first of five strategic focus areas.
It may seem like first-world problems to be preoccupied with wind turbines, electrolysis, and catalysts when the world is set on fire and innocent people die. But the green transition is our joint ticket to cheaper and safer energy supply—making us less vulnerable to wars and rising fossil energy prices. It’s also our ticket to a way of life with a lower climate footprint and thereby also to a less chaotic future on our planet. So DTU will continue to develop green solutions.
We do this, among other things, in the shipping industry with solutions to protect both the climate and the marine environment. Shipping is still the backbone of all international trade, and as much as 80 per cent of global freight transport is by sea.
Think about how much impact it has when engineers improve the energy efficiency of ships by just a fraction, or when research shows how we can reduce the footprint of shipping on the marine environment. Even the smallest improvements make a big difference when the shipping volumes are so large.
Green transition may not have the world’s attention right now—but it still has ours.
