EnvironmentOperations

Anti-Arctic shipping alliance grows

Eight more companies have agreed this week not to ship goods through the Arctic Ocean and signed the Arctic Corporate Shipping Pledge launched by Ocean Conservancy and Nike in October 2019. The new signatories include Ralph Lauren, Kuehne + Nagel, Puma, International Direct Packaging, Allbirds, Aritzia, Hudson Shipping Lines and Bureo.

The Arctic Shipping Corporate Pledge invites companies to not intentionally route ships or send goods through the region as part of a potential new global transshipment route.

A host of top containerlines have also pledged to avoid the Arctic in the last couple of months, while at the same time Russia has intimated it plans to develop its own container shipping operations to move goods from Asia to Europe via the Northern Sea Route.

Last month, the US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s annual Arctic report card found that the remaining sea ice in the Arctic is, on average, less than half the thickness of sea ice 40 years ago.

Sam Chambers

Starting out with the Informa Group in 2000 in Hong Kong, Sam Chambers became editor of Maritime Asia magazine as well as East Asia Editor for the world’s oldest newspaper, Lloyd’s List. In 2005 he pursued a freelance career and wrote for a variety of titles including taking on the role of Asia Editor at Seatrade magazine and China correspondent for Supply Chain Asia. His work has also appeared in The Economist, The New York Times, The Sunday Times and The International Herald Tribune.

Comments

  1. Interesting to read every time again that people and organizations mix up climate and environment !!
    Not to use the northern route is a clear pro for the environment! Basis for this are thoughts what happens when something there goes wrong.
    It shows it is a decision towards environment which is believed to be more important than the longer route with more use of bunkers. Something I fully agree upon.

    But following this logic there is something more to consider:
    That we (also following above-mentioned link) still read about reduction of CO2 to avoid 1,5-2°C or even more. Already now, the gap between predictions (computer calculations) and actual temperatures is considerably increasing, where the average global temperature is only minimally rising. Something that can be logically assumed, knowing that some 15.000 years ago there was a little Ice Age, everybody knows about, and the ice melted without influence of human CO2. Without influence of CO2 at all !! It is only logical that it is getting slightly warmer year by year. The last 15.000 years it was like that ! And earth proved to be able to find a solution in times where it was clearly warmer than now. What’s wrong?

    Everybody knows that these earth’s temperature prediction figures come from calculations with incomplete computer programs, that strangely, whether UN, IPCC as the bell-wether, more than a few governments with the respective posture or media, are believed to be true, although the best whether predicting computers are not able to predict weather dead reliably on a 14-day basis.
    It is strange that with this knowledge, organizations still back on this wrong horse.
    Logically it must be such that we are told that this is the ‘right’ horse.
    This should make you think about their intentions!

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