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international maritime organization
Ocean Defenders Decry 'Total Failure' of Global Shipping Agreement to Meet Paris Climate Goal
"There is no excuse for this wish-and-a-prayer agreement," said one activist.
Jul 07, 2023
As the world's seafaring nations failed to agree on any absolute emission reduction targets during this week's Marine Environment Protection Committee meeting in London, civil society groups warned Friday that the draft deal reached by 175 nations is insufficient to achieve the Paris climate agreement's preferred 1.5°C planetary warming limit.
In a tentative agreement reached at the tail end of the 80th Marine Environment Protection Committee meeting (MEPC80), members of the United Nations' International Maritime Organization (IMO) eschewed concrete commitments to slash greenhouse gas emissions in favor of "indicative checkpoints" to reach net-zero by or around 2050.
These include reducing global annual emissions from shipping from 2008 levels "by at least 20% and striving for 30% by 2030." In the longer term, the tentative agreement calls for a 70% reduction—and "striving for 80%"—in shipping emissions by 2040.
Activists are demanding a 50% reduction in worldwide shipping emissions from 2008 levels by the end of the decade.
The shipping industry is responsible for about 3% of total global greenhouse gas emissions, even more than worldwide commercial aviation. The overwhelming majority of the roughly 100,000 cargo vessels plying the seas and carrying 90% of all global cargo run on bunker fuel, the world's dirtiest diesel containing 3,500 times more sulfur than automotive diesel.
Members of Ocean Rebellion marked what the activist group called the "total failure" of MEPC80 by dropping a large banner from the second floor of IMO Lambeth Road headquarters.
Ocean Rebellion also staged creative protests throughout the week at MEPC80. An activist dressed as Poseidon confronted attendees; the mythical ruler of the seas also "sent a letter" to IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim seeking a meeting to discuss how his "watery realm is becoming uninhabitable."
Ocean Rebellion also staged a mermaid "die-in" on the conference floor, and threw a morning rave outside the IMO building.
"The U.N. talks a great talk. The International Maritime Organization, a U.N. body, is unfit for purpose. It's corrupted by industry and uses its U.N. remit on behalf of the shipping industry," charged Ocean Rebellion activist and artist Suzanne Stallard.
"We're living in an age of ecological breakdown; the U.N. must recognize this by reforming IMO governance," she added. "We ask the U.N. to call out its rogue subsidiaries, still more harmful to life on Earth than the rogue states we hear so much about."
The Clean Shipping Coalition, an international association of civil society environmental protection groups, on Friday published a set of recommendations for the shipping industry:
- 1.5°C-aligned emission cuts through the introduction of new legislation and tightening of existing laws;
- Shipping levies on a 1.5°C-aligned basis and of at least $100 per ton of greenhouse gas emissions in service of an equitable transition;
- Industry cooperation and investments in wind propulsion, green hydrogen, and other alternative energy solutions;
- Inclusion of shipping in countries' nationally determined contributions under the Paris agreement.
"There is no excuse for this wish-and-a-prayer agreement," John Maggs, president of the Clean Shipping Coalition, said in a statement. "They knew what the science required, and that a 50% cut in emissions by 2030 was both possible and affordable. Instead, the level of ambition agreed is far short of what is needed to be sure of keeping global heating below 1.5ºC and the language seemingly contrived to be vague and noncommittal."
"The most vulnerable put up an admirable fight for high ambition and significantly improved the agreement," Maggs added, "but we are still a long way from the IMO treating the climate crisis with the urgency that it deserves and that the public demands."
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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."
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