The British Ports Association has rejected a Spanish study suggesting that EU carbon pricing is pulling container traffic away from continental ports and toward the UK. The BPA points to London Gateway's new fourth berth, the arrival of Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd's Gemini services, and normal liner network changes as more plausible drivers of recent growth. UK ports handled 11% more containers in 2025, with London accounting for roughly 500,000 of the additional 600,000 units. The dispute matters because the European Commission has proposed tightening ETS anti-evasion rules. Under the plan, some non-EU container ports within 150 nautical miles of an EU port could lose their status as a port of call for emissions accounting, which would raise carbon costs for shipping lines using British terminals. The BPA argues the evidence is not strong enough to justify measures that could hit billions of pounds of port investment, including DP World's £1bn expansion at London Gateway. Both sides support shipping decarbonisation, but they disagree on how to measure diversion and where to draw the line between carbon avoidance and normal competition. The EU proposals have not been adopted yet, and the BPA is urging regulators to reassess the data before finalising rules that could reshape container flows across the Channel.
