As delegates sipped their drinks and munched on canapés to celebrate the first day of the Marine Environment Protection Committee, , at the UN International Maritime Organisation HQ, they were theatrically interrupted by Poseidon, God of the Ocean, who burst into the room accompanied by two desperate, dripping, merpeople
Appalled by the state of the dying Ocean and the IMO’s failure to offer any environmental help, Poseidon had swum up the Thames, holding his nose as he passed the nearby House of Commons, to make a last minute plea to the IMO. Amazingly, ocean life, unlike the oil and gas polluters who peddle the poisonous Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) which shipping burns, has no voice at the IMO. Poseidon had already sent a letter to the IMO Secretary General Kitack Lim, which he ignored. This left Poseidon with no choice but to leave his watery realm to infiltrate the IMO HQ and, as Head of State of 71% of the earth’s surface, directly make his commands known. Poseidon was dressed in a fetching cloak of seaweed with a dazzling seaweed diadem. Sadly, his accompanying merfolk appeared to be poisoned by marine pollutants and tangled in discarded fishing nets – fishing waste makes up 70% of marine microplastics.
Poseidon proclaimed: ‘Our oceans are overheating. The seas are acidifying.The Ocean oxygen needed for humans and merfolk to breathe is disappearing. Our majestic merfolk are being trapped in all sorts of discarded rubbish and caught by lost containers. Plastic pollution litters the beaches and the seabed and is snaring sea life. The shipping you regulate is a major contributor to this, with spills of oil, plastic nodules, ghost nets, chemicals and food waste all creating atoxic pollution mix which is playing a major part in climate and nature collapse. My watery realm is becoming uninhabitable! And the air you breathe is too – just think how many lives have been shortened by breathing the noxious fumes of Heavy Fuel Oil, shame on you!’
Poseidon added: ‘At the MEPC meetings this week these issues will be discussed. But the time for more blablabla is long gone. You will now act, push obstructing states back into history where they belong, and begin the real, near-term steps needed to get shipping emissions down by 50% by 2030. This is in line with Paris Agreement targets, and not far off demands of EU, UK, US and Canada. It’s completely doable—just do it.’
This was theatre, admittedly, but so is the IMO itself–a theatre of horror, which, by failing to act on shipping emissions, is condemning countless millions to agonising deaths. Meanwhile the IMO delegates sipped their bubbly and munched their canapés on the banks of the Thames, opposite Big Ben in London, while the sea acidified and burned.
Across the street delegates could see two suited lobbyists unfurling a banner which said ‘50% down by 2030=1.5 degrees.’
The IMO is revising its existing climate strategy which currently only aims to halve shipping emissions by 2050 and delegates are meeting in London to conclude its strategy revision.
Ocean Rebellion calls on IMO Member States to:
● Follow the science and commit to halve ship emissions by 2030
● Force ships to slow down to rapidly cut emissions
● Prioritise wind power for ships, new and old
● Speed up roll-out of new climate-friendly fuels
● Steeply price the carbon in shipping fuels
● Make sure no-one is left behind by helping countries in need
Sophie Miller of Ocean Rebellion said: ‘The horror of a few merpeople dying is nothing to the horror of the agreements reached behind closed doors at the IMO by fossil fuel and shipping lobbyists from obstructive countries like Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Argentina, determined to explode a carbon bomb under all our futures. The IMO’s refusal to tackle shipping pollution ahead of 2030 is destroying the Ocean and any chance we have of keeping anywhere near to the 1.5C demanded by the Paris Climate Agreement – an agreement brokered by the UN but one which one of its own bodies (UN IMO) can’t be bothered to implement. The IMO still refuses to take simple actions like slow steaming, using cleaner distillates instead of HFO and ensuring less unnecessary shipping, preferring instead to listen to the oily advice of the fossil fuel lobbyists who always insist on ‘business as usual,’ once again showing how little shipping cares about the climate and how much it loves the fossil fuel industry.’
Rob Higgs of Ocean Rebellion said: ‘The IMO is allowing the fossil fuel industry to continue incinerating its waste product, HFO, at sea. HFO is a fossil fuel distillation byproduct that’s so toxic its use is banned on land – it’s highly acidic, full of nitrogen oxides (a major cause of respiratory diseases) and has been linked to 400,000 premature deaths worldwide per year (at a health cost of $50 billion). The IMO is failing in its duty to meet the Paris Climate Agreement. It must act now to halve shipping emissions before 2030, advise against any fossil fuel subsidies and start severely taxing shipping fuel. All fossil fuel lobbyists must be ejected from committees and black-listed for their horrific influence on policy making, and all IMO processes must be made transparent and open to scrutiny.’
Suzanne Stallard of Ocean Rebellion said: ‘By allowing ships to burn HFO the IMO is significantly increasing shipping’s contribution to CO2 emissions rather than reducing them in line with the Paris Agreement. 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. Black carbon is especially dangerous when emitted by ships in the Arctic. IMO has been discussing rules for black carbon for more than a decade and the best they have to show for it is a commitment for a voluntary switch to cleaner fuels. The shipping industry has shown themselves incapable of self-regulation and are putting countless lives at risk. The time is now for a binding rule to tackle this potent source of climate heating. The IMO must stop this stupidity now – voluntary switching has never worked, when has any industry ever volunteered any meaningful commitment to the environment? The IMO must act to end HFO use now – not just in the Arctic but everywhere – if it is illegal to burn a fuel type on land then it should be illegal to burn it at sea. After all, much of it eventually ends up in the same place – our lungs.’
Clive Russell of Ocean Rebellion said: ‘Not only is the IMO greenwashing fossil fuel use, it’s also proposing dirty ‘scrubbers’ to do the same for ships. These scrubbers stop the worst HFO emissions entering the atmosphere: that’s good right? Well not if the scrubber turns it into an acidic solution and pumps it into the Ocean. So while still polluting the air the IMO is
also now directly acidifying the sea – that’s surely the definition of greenwash! The IMO’s ‘solution’ is a toxic solution.’
Chris Armstrong, University of Southampton says: “By dodging obvious reforms like slow sailing, wind, and less international commerce the IMO condemns the Paris Climate Agreement to death by a thousand meetings. We must cut shipping emissions now. Commitments to Net Zero by 2050 cannot be used as a corporate ruse to avoid taking urgent action.”
Andrew Darnton of Ocean Rebellion said: ‘LNG is a fossil fuel that, when extracted, transported and burnt as a marine fuel, leaks methane into the atmosphere – a dangerous global-warming gas that is over 80-times more climate-warming in the short-term than carbon dioxide. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) identified rapid methane emission cuts as one of the top priorities in order to limit global warming to as close to 1.5°C as possible. The IPCC’s latest report focusing on climate mitigation makes clear that fossil gas in the form of LNG is not a solution for shipping’s decarbonisation. Contrary to what climate science requires, shipping and port companies have been investing heavily in fossil LNG, alleging that the fuel will reduce their environmental impacts and climate pollution. There are currently over 785 new cargo ships on order globally, with over 400 being built to run on fossil LNG. Burning more fossil LNG onboard vessels is a disaster in the making for our planet. It would only increase methane emissions from ships, which already rose by 150% between 2012 and 2018, according to the UN International Maritime Organisation (IMO).’
Roc Sandford of Ocean Rebellion said: ‘The IMO is clearly unfit for purpose. It only acts on behalf of the shipping industry and rarely considers the environment. It must halve shipping emissions now, we are already too late for some people to survive the IMOs grisly policies, but not yet for everyone. Add to this the IMO’s continued backing of the fossil fuel industry, by not taxing shipping fuel and allowing the dirty fossil fuel byproduct HFO to be burned at sea, plus its lack of regulation of hazardous petrochemical shipping, and the list of IMO misdeeds and wrong directions begins to get very long indeed. Given this ever expanding list isn’t it time the environmental remit of the IMO is governed by another, better, UN agency? Life is too important to be squandered by inept bureaucracy.’
Ocean Rebellion demands: The UN must form a new, transparent, and representative body to govern the Ocean for the benefit of ALL life. This new body must have the restoration and replenishment of the Ocean as its only measure of success. It should replace corporate power with people power. And it should represent the many forms of marine life who actually make the ocean a home.
AS THE SEA DIES WE DIE
