Abstract: Low carbon emission and environmental protection are hotspots for ship development. In this paper, the definition of "green ships" and "green fleets" is presented, the current status of green ship devel-opment in America and Europe is introduced, and the necessity of developing green ships in China is dis-cussed from the aspects of energy saving, reducing emission of pollutants, and energy security, etc. Finally, the paper presents some systematic measures for developing green ships, including strengthening the dem-onstration of development strategy, updating ship design ideas, focusing green energy exploration, develop-ing equipment of green ships, improving green construction capabilities, studying the green management concept, analyzing the new trends of worldwide green ship technology, and boosting domestic and interna-tional communication and cooperation.