SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Ocean Rebellion campaigners hold a banner at a direct action outside the headquarters of the International Maritime Organization in London on June 26, 2023.
(Photo: Ocean Rebellion)
Ocean Rebellion Targets UN Maritime Agency With Demand for 50% Emissions Cut by 2030
The International Maritime Organization is currently aiming a 50% reduction only by 2050.
Jun 27, 2023
Saying the International Maritime Organization is "unfit for purpose" due to its refusal to take far-reaching action to drastically draw down emissions from the shipping sector, the global campaign group Ocean Rebellion on Monday greeted delegates at the body's four-day summit with a visual representation of the shipping pollution that harms both marine and human life.
Outside the IMO's headquarters in London, the group displayed a puppet of an oil tanker "belching a vile black carbon fog of heavy fuel oil (HFO)," the dense oil that is used to power ships around the world and is linked to respiratory diseases, particularly in children.
A replica of a flaming Molotov oil drum, "representing the carbon bomb the IMO is planting under all our futures," was also on display at the protest, which the group titled "IMO, OMG, Just Do It."
Across the street, two campaigners dressed as shipping industry lobbyists unfurled a banner reading, "50% down by 2030=1.5 degrees."
Ocean Rebellion and other climate action groups are demanding that the IMO impose regulations that would reduce shipping emissions by 50% by 2030, which the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) said in 2021 is needed to support the Paris climate agreement's goal of limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.
The ICCT said that 2050—at the latest—should be the deadline set by the IMO for achieving zero "carbon dioxide equivalent" emissions, but the IMO, a United Nations agency, currently aims only to halve shipping emissions by then.
"This is an emergency," said Clive Russell, co-founder of Ocean Rebellion, which began as an art collective tied to the grassroots group Extinction Rebellion. "Our greenhouse gas emissions are setting off a chain of events tipping our environment and societies towards climate chaos. Every moment we fail to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and commodities we threaten the resilience of nature."
"With every day we fail to act, we approach dangerous tipping points with cascading knock-on impacts," he added. "There's no time to waste, we must act now."
The group noted that HFO is "so toxic its use is banned on land," with the highly acidic substance filled with nitrogen oxides, and "has been linked to 400,000 premature deaths worldwide per year (at a health cost of $50 billion)."
"Furthermore black carbon from burnt HFO falls as soot and makes the ice caps absorb more heat and melt, further accelerating the terrifying feedback loops of planetary heating which are already killing millions and threaten all our lives," said the group.
The IMO has proposed the use of "scrubbers," or an exhaust gas cleaning system, to allow for the continued use of HFO, but as the World Wildlife Fund said in 2020, scrubbers "don't eliminate air pollution—they just transform it into water pollution" by running on "a continuous flow of seawater that gets discharged into the ocean in a contaminated and acidic state."
"While still polluting the air the IMO is also now directly acidifying the sea—that's surely the definition of greenwash!" said Ocean Rebellion on Monday. "The IMO's 'solution' is a toxic solution."
Shipping companies have also been turning to so-called liquefied "natural" gas (LNG) to power vessels, which they claim will reduce their environmental impact.
LNG, however, leaks planet-heating methane, which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has made clear must be urgently reduced in the atmosphere to mitigate the climate emergency.
According to Ocean Rebellion, more than 785 cargo ships are currently being built, and over 400 will run on liquefied fossil gas. Those ships would increase global methane emissions, which rose 150% between 2012 and 2018.
Despite claims by shipmakers that LNG is "natural" and a clean alternative to HFO, said Ocean Rebellion spokesperson Andrew Darnton, LNG is "not a solution, it's just madness."
"It's a fossil fuel. The U.N. IPCC has warned us we need to reduce fossil fuel use—how does building infrastructure to use more fossil fuels help us?" said Darnton. "Governments must stop listening to industry and start listening to the scientists, they're all saying the same thing—CUT FOSSIL FUELS."
The group demanded that the agency "follow the science and commit to [halving] ship emissions by 2030" by:
- Requiring ships to slow down;
- Prioritizing wind power for ships, new and old;
- Speeding up the roll-out of new climate-friendly fuels; and
- Steeply pricing the carbon in shipping fuels.
A 10% reduction in a ship's speed can reduce the vessel's greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 20%, researchers in Croatia found in 2020.
"The U.N. must form a new, transparent, and representative body to govern the ocean for the benefit of ALL life," said the group. "This new body must have the restoration and replenishment of the ocean as its only measure of success."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Saying the International Maritime Organization is "unfit for purpose" due to its refusal to take far-reaching action to drastically draw down emissions from the shipping sector, the global campaign group Ocean Rebellion on Monday greeted delegates at the body's four-day summit with a visual representation of the shipping pollution that harms both marine and human life.
Outside the IMO's headquarters in London, the group displayed a puppet of an oil tanker "belching a vile black carbon fog of heavy fuel oil (HFO)," the dense oil that is used to power ships around the world and is linked to respiratory diseases, particularly in children.
A replica of a flaming Molotov oil drum, "representing the carbon bomb the IMO is planting under all our futures," was also on display at the protest, which the group titled "IMO, OMG, Just Do It."
Across the street, two campaigners dressed as shipping industry lobbyists unfurled a banner reading, "50% down by 2030=1.5 degrees."
Ocean Rebellion and other climate action groups are demanding that the IMO impose regulations that would reduce shipping emissions by 50% by 2030, which the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) said in 2021 is needed to support the Paris climate agreement's goal of limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.
The ICCT said that 2050—at the latest—should be the deadline set by the IMO for achieving zero "carbon dioxide equivalent" emissions, but the IMO, a United Nations agency, currently aims only to halve shipping emissions by then.
"This is an emergency," said Clive Russell, co-founder of Ocean Rebellion, which began as an art collective tied to the grassroots group Extinction Rebellion. "Our greenhouse gas emissions are setting off a chain of events tipping our environment and societies towards climate chaos. Every moment we fail to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and commodities we threaten the resilience of nature."
"With every day we fail to act, we approach dangerous tipping points with cascading knock-on impacts," he added. "There's no time to waste, we must act now."
The group noted that HFO is "so toxic its use is banned on land," with the highly acidic substance filled with nitrogen oxides, and "has been linked to 400,000 premature deaths worldwide per year (at a health cost of $50 billion)."
"Furthermore black carbon from burnt HFO falls as soot and makes the ice caps absorb more heat and melt, further accelerating the terrifying feedback loops of planetary heating which are already killing millions and threaten all our lives," said the group.
The IMO has proposed the use of "scrubbers," or an exhaust gas cleaning system, to allow for the continued use of HFO, but as the World Wildlife Fund said in 2020, scrubbers "don't eliminate air pollution—they just transform it into water pollution" by running on "a continuous flow of seawater that gets discharged into the ocean in a contaminated and acidic state."
"While still polluting the air the IMO is also now directly acidifying the sea—that's surely the definition of greenwash!" said Ocean Rebellion on Monday. "The IMO's 'solution' is a toxic solution."
Shipping companies have also been turning to so-called liquefied "natural" gas (LNG) to power vessels, which they claim will reduce their environmental impact.
LNG, however, leaks planet-heating methane, which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has made clear must be urgently reduced in the atmosphere to mitigate the climate emergency.
According to Ocean Rebellion, more than 785 cargo ships are currently being built, and over 400 will run on liquefied fossil gas. Those ships would increase global methane emissions, which rose 150% between 2012 and 2018.
Despite claims by shipmakers that LNG is "natural" and a clean alternative to HFO, said Ocean Rebellion spokesperson Andrew Darnton, LNG is "not a solution, it's just madness."
"It's a fossil fuel. The U.N. IPCC has warned us we need to reduce fossil fuel use—how does building infrastructure to use more fossil fuels help us?" said Darnton. "Governments must stop listening to industry and start listening to the scientists, they're all saying the same thing—CUT FOSSIL FUELS."
The group demanded that the agency "follow the science and commit to [halving] ship emissions by 2030" by:
- Requiring ships to slow down;
- Prioritizing wind power for ships, new and old;
- Speeding up the roll-out of new climate-friendly fuels; and
- Steeply pricing the carbon in shipping fuels.
A 10% reduction in a ship's speed can reduce the vessel's greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 20%, researchers in Croatia found in 2020.
"The U.N. must form a new, transparent, and representative body to govern the ocean for the benefit of ALL life," said the group. "This new body must have the restoration and replenishment of the ocean as its only measure of success."
From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
Saying the International Maritime Organization is "unfit for purpose" due to its refusal to take far-reaching action to drastically draw down emissions from the shipping sector, the global campaign group Ocean Rebellion on Monday greeted delegates at the body's four-day summit with a visual representation of the shipping pollution that harms both marine and human life.
Outside the IMO's headquarters in London, the group displayed a puppet of an oil tanker "belching a vile black carbon fog of heavy fuel oil (HFO)," the dense oil that is used to power ships around the world and is linked to respiratory diseases, particularly in children.
A replica of a flaming Molotov oil drum, "representing the carbon bomb the IMO is planting under all our futures," was also on display at the protest, which the group titled "IMO, OMG, Just Do It."
Across the street, two campaigners dressed as shipping industry lobbyists unfurled a banner reading, "50% down by 2030=1.5 degrees."
Ocean Rebellion and other climate action groups are demanding that the IMO impose regulations that would reduce shipping emissions by 50% by 2030, which the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) said in 2021 is needed to support the Paris climate agreement's goal of limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.
The ICCT said that 2050—at the latest—should be the deadline set by the IMO for achieving zero "carbon dioxide equivalent" emissions, but the IMO, a United Nations agency, currently aims only to halve shipping emissions by then.
"This is an emergency," said Clive Russell, co-founder of Ocean Rebellion, which began as an art collective tied to the grassroots group Extinction Rebellion. "Our greenhouse gas emissions are setting off a chain of events tipping our environment and societies towards climate chaos. Every moment we fail to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and commodities we threaten the resilience of nature."
"With every day we fail to act, we approach dangerous tipping points with cascading knock-on impacts," he added. "There's no time to waste, we must act now."
The group noted that HFO is "so toxic its use is banned on land," with the highly acidic substance filled with nitrogen oxides, and "has been linked to 400,000 premature deaths worldwide per year (at a health cost of $50 billion)."
"Furthermore black carbon from burnt HFO falls as soot and makes the ice caps absorb more heat and melt, further accelerating the terrifying feedback loops of planetary heating which are already killing millions and threaten all our lives," said the group.
The IMO has proposed the use of "scrubbers," or an exhaust gas cleaning system, to allow for the continued use of HFO, but as the World Wildlife Fund said in 2020, scrubbers "don't eliminate air pollution—they just transform it into water pollution" by running on "a continuous flow of seawater that gets discharged into the ocean in a contaminated and acidic state."
"While still polluting the air the IMO is also now directly acidifying the sea—that's surely the definition of greenwash!" said Ocean Rebellion on Monday. "The IMO's 'solution' is a toxic solution."
Shipping companies have also been turning to so-called liquefied "natural" gas (LNG) to power vessels, which they claim will reduce their environmental impact.
LNG, however, leaks planet-heating methane, which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has made clear must be urgently reduced in the atmosphere to mitigate the climate emergency.
According to Ocean Rebellion, more than 785 cargo ships are currently being built, and over 400 will run on liquefied fossil gas. Those ships would increase global methane emissions, which rose 150% between 2012 and 2018.
Despite claims by shipmakers that LNG is "natural" and a clean alternative to HFO, said Ocean Rebellion spokesperson Andrew Darnton, LNG is "not a solution, it's just madness."
"It's a fossil fuel. The U.N. IPCC has warned us we need to reduce fossil fuel use—how does building infrastructure to use more fossil fuels help us?" said Darnton. "Governments must stop listening to industry and start listening to the scientists, they're all saying the same thing—CUT FOSSIL FUELS."
The group demanded that the agency "follow the science and commit to [halving] ship emissions by 2030" by:
- Requiring ships to slow down;
- Prioritizing wind power for ships, new and old;
- Speeding up the roll-out of new climate-friendly fuels; and
- Steeply pricing the carbon in shipping fuels.
A 10% reduction in a ship's speed can reduce the vessel's greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 20%, researchers in Croatia found in 2020.
"The U.N. must form a new, transparent, and representative body to govern the ocean for the benefit of ALL life," said the group. "This new body must have the restoration and replenishment of the ocean as its only measure of success."
From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.