Shipping News:

  Ninety percent of the world’s consumer goods are transported by ship.
  Ships generate 30 percent of the world’s smog-forming nitrogen oxide emissions.
  One ship entering port generates the air pollution of 350,000 cars in one hour.
  Shipping trade is expected to triple in the next two decades.

Challenging Piracy on the High Seas

Don’t Make the Planet Walk the Plank

By Teri Shore, Clean Vessels Campaign Director, Bluewater Network – a division of Friends of the Earth

Ship pollution is a major problem that affects human health and the global environment. Breathing in exhaust from diesel fueled ships can cause cancer and respiratory diseases. Ship pollution also causes smog and emits climate change gases. Smog has a bad habit of oozing inland and affecting scenery and the health of wildlife and our communities. I have seen the ugly haze of smog over the sequoias in King’s Canyon National Park and it badly clouds the beauty of the park.

Ship discharges need to be cleaned up, but regulation of the global shipping trade is made very complicated because ships are often registered in countries where environmental regulations don’t exist or are never enforced. However, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a body governed by the United Nations, has a great degree of authority over global shipping. As part of the Clean Vessels Campaign that I direct for Bluewater Network, in July 2005, I spearheaded an international action aimed at cutting ship emissions through IMO regulations. The action involved a colorful street protest outside the headquarters of the IMO in London and direct lobbying of the nation delegates inside.

As the IMO convened environmental meetings this July, Bluewater Network and its partners released the first-ever Environmental Report Card on the IMO giving it failing grades on air pollution, human health and climate change. We also released a Port Community Bill of Rights intended to protect people living near ports from air toxics and quality of life impacts caused by air pollution from ships, which are increasing as global trade expands.

Being able to work with the team of activists from Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland to stage the street protest was incredible. Our activists played shipping industry “pirates” who owned the Jolly Roger Shipping Company. The pirates were holding “hostage” IMO nation delegates who are beholden to corporate shipping industry interests. They chanted, “Don’t Make the Planet Walk the Plank” and “Who Owns the IMO? Shipping industry CEOs!” Their black pirate garb drew the shipping media out from inside the fortress-like IMO building. One bemused shipping industry executive remarked, “I guess I own the IMO!”

Inside the IMO meetings, I worked with Eelco Leemans of the North Sea Foundation who represented Friends of the Earth International and David Marshall of the Clean Air Task Force to lobby for stronger international air pollution standards. The inside team was armed with technical papers that documented the need and the means for cleaning up ships. With input from Jesse Marquez of the Coalition for Safe Environment, I also wrote and submitted the first-ever IMO paper on environmental justice issues related to shipping and ports. Our call to strengthen shipping air pollution standards was supported by the U. S. delegation and a number of other nations.

The final result was that the IMO agreed to push forward with stronger regulations on ship emissions and marine fuel quality and, for the first time, to consider regulating particulate matter produced by ship engines. Limits on existing engines will also be considered. The new regulations will take two to three years to develop and then will need to be approved by the IMO member nations. Bluewater Network will be working with the Friends of the Earth International network to keep up the pressure for change.