Reality check on climate timeline

Around the time Santa’s elves were buffing their snow boots, the UK released its draft Environment Bill. This Brexit playbook included plans for a Defra-funded environmental watchdog (the Office for Environmental Protection) and stated that environmental law will cover “marine, coastal or nature conservation” – a slightly strange combination of words – but not flooding and town and country planning. Surely changes are afoot at the UK’s Marine Management Organisation.

Last year saw the launch of the flagship 25-Year Environment Plan (lots of generic commitments to improve the marine environment, especially litter and plastics), a Clean Air Strategy with implications for ports (read, start measuring it!), ‘consultation’ on mandatory net gain in the planning system, and a new waste and resources strategy. This year will be more challenging than usual for UK ports and terminals wanting to build and physically expand.

Meanwhile a Defra initiative to investigate plastic straws and stirrers pales into insignificance alongside the October release of the most important document in recent history. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on 1.5⁰C, which I call the final ‘warming warning’, stated that humanity has until 2030 to keep GHG emissions below dangerous levels. That’s only 132 paychecks from now to implement transformation in the world trade system to be able to cope with the unprecedented accelerated physical damage from extreme events we are already witnessing.

World greenhouse gas emissions need to peak by 2020. Decision-makers therefore probably have one round of capital expenditure to invest in low (embodied) carbon, resilient and future-ready ports and coastal transport infrastructure. In this age of disagreement, can ports, cities, councils, ministries and companies collaborate to create these networks – in a decade? There will be success stories but the answer is clearly: of course not. Adaptation planning is about to become de rigueur in all our fields of work.

Crusade to decarbonise

December’s 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-24) in Katowice, Poland, received a reasonable amount of media coverage. Despite aviation and maritime negotiations falling under separate UN regimes through the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the IMO, respectively, what is key is that the ‘transport community’ is now ensconced in these annual discussions.

Staying within our lifetime, it’s estimated that total global transport emissions need to be reduced to 2-3 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 per annum, by 2050, to honour the mitigation measures legally adopted in the Paris Agreement. Currently, international shipping alone emits 1 Gt a year and despairingly, a 23% rise is predicted by 2035 (compared to 2015). There can be no let-up in the crusade to decarbonise. Banks and institutional lenders are way out in front in recognising that.

I hope 2019 will see a few companies in the maritime realm embrace the gear change required in our sector. We’ve seen very welcome advocacy among the port authorities – including those in the new World Ports Sustainability Programme – but now it’s time for the private container operators and cargo handlers to join in by making harder-hitting advances. There is certainly a gap in that market for a sustainability and/or climate ‘leader’. Perhaps such leadership will spring up from the likes of an Argentina, where a carbon tax has already been adopted on all fossil fuels sold, or Portugal, where the nation has announced carbon neutrality by 2050 and has 25 specific objectives for transport.

You’re not going to get one of those new year top ten lists from me here, but there are several key initiatives that ports and maritime organisations will encounter in 2019. All GHG emissions reduction strategies will need to embrace the Science-based Target (SBT) approach. Momentum will be gained on disclosing climate actions and information inherently linked to their business performance in line with the TCFD (Task Force for Climate-related Financial Disclosure, which stemmed from a Bloomberg report). Credible actions on sustainability and CSR will need to be properly prioritised and aligned with the relevant UN Sustainable Development Goal (of which there are 17). Even while the MMO gears up for the lower global sulphur limit in marine fuel for 2020, there will be no let-up on air pollution – especially in respect of coastal shipping routes, vessels idling in port and heavy machinery in terminals – and the appalling effects on human health. Remember, outdoor air pollution kills 4.1m people worldwide every year. You’ll be hard pushed to hear a more devastating statistic this year.

Charles Haine is technical director, maritime at WSP.