Swell AI Transcript: HTPTOE1480OceanWaterTempsReach100FAsShippingIndustryAgreesToReduceCarbonEmissions.mp3

00:00 SPEAKER_00 A revised strategy to reduce global shipping emissions has emerged after two intense weeks of talks in London. It marks a significant increase in the industry's climate ambition. But we also saw that this week, sea surface temperatures have increased to the point where it's hitting 100 degrees Fahrenheit in some spots. That is crazy news. And we're going to talk about it because we're going to talk about all these revised strategies and strategies to lower climate emissions from different industries. But is it too late? We're going to talk about that on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey, everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. This is the podcast where you find out what's happening in the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. And we're going to talk about some news today. There's two big news things that happened today or this week, I guess, or this past week. One, there are record sea surface temperatures that were hit close to 100 degrees Fahrenheit in and around Florida in the mid 90s, one time hitting 100 degrees Fahrenheit, which is kind of crazy. It's the third month in a row where we've seen record temperatures on a monthly basis. This in a time where we're seeing an El Nino develop in the Pacific Ocean. Now it's you know, we're we're also seeing increased sea surface temperature in the Atlantic. Obviously, our summer has been kind of crazy here in Ontario anyway, and around North America, at least we've seen extreme heat as well as extreme weather. We've seen a lot of wet weather coming in. We've seen, you know, wildfires happen, you know, wind shifts and inhaling smoke. It's kind of crazy what's happening right now in the beginning of this El Nino. But on the other side of it, we're seeing some hope. We're seeing a hope of a revised climate strategy for the shipping industry that was just finished in two intense weeks of negotiations in London. Is that going to produce something for us? We're going to talk about that in just a moment. I wanted to just talk a little bit about these ocean temperatures peak. Although these have peaked, I mentioned earlier that the last two months we've seen record temperatures in June and May, and we're going to see more. Now, what can this really come about? Like some people are saying, oh, well, a couple of months of record temperatures is not that big of a deal. But this is not a condition of just every once in a while we get record temperatures. This is a case of temperature that has been increasing for quite a long time since the 1800s. If you look at the there's a there's a graph and one of the links that I'm going to post in the in the show notes. But it looks at the temperature anomaly really in in degrees Fahrenheit from 1880 to two thousand and twenty three or even to twenty two thousand twenty. Sorry. And it looks like it's a complete increase. And we're seeing an increase in this and it's variable over times. And that's what we know when we kind of look at the variability up and down, up and down, up and down, you know, year after year. We're seeing an overall trend of it actually increasing and we're seeing a very big increase compared to the average between 1971 and 2000. After the 2000s, you see a really a real drastic increase, especially in the 2010s to get into that temperature rise. And we're going to get even more this year. What seems to be anyway from an average perspective or even just from where the temperature anomalies is going are going because we're we're seeing that that increase. What could this lead to? Well, in the short term, it could lead to algal blooms, red tide for for Florida, which is not it's not a rare occasion anymore. It seems to happen year after year. That will lead to dead animals along this along the coastlines, shutting down of tourism, fishing and any kind of recreational sports or activities along the coastline. Because when we talk about algal blooms, not just red tide, red tide brings a smell of dead things, but sort of algal blooms, algal blooms do not smell nice. They cause a lot of dead things to happen in and around the coastline. And, you know, you just get this gross smell and this gross look. Nobody wants to be along that coastline if they're coming down to travel and enjoying a vacation, which a lot of people do in Florida. Tourism is a huge, huge part of their, you know, of their sort of moving forward and their I guess their GDP or their their income or their revenue. A lot of businesses depend on it. A lot of people depend on it. And so, you know, from a Florida perspective, it's not looking good at this beginning of the summer. And that's that's obviously a concern from not only from an environmental standard, but also from an economic standpoint. And that's what, you know, that's always a concern when both of those get hit individually, of course, but also when both of those get hit. On the other hand, you know, we're also looking at intense, more intense weather that's going to be coming when the sea surface temperature is higher, more evaporation happens, you get more intense hurricanes, more intense weather events. So that's something that might we might be getting later on in the season as we get later in the summer and closer to fall in that like that late August, early September, mid September, late September and October phase. It's it's going to continue to increase. And we might see a really bad hurricane season that's coming up. I'm not a meteorologist. I don't know what the prediction is, but this tends when you start to see an increase in temperature, when you start to see that increase and that those records being broken, that's when you start to see that bad weather. So, you know, and then from the long term standpoint, I have having these algal blooms, these red tides that kills the habitats that are below, you know, so seagrass habitats, coral reef habitats getting bleached because of because of high temperatures smothering because of algal blooms. See these, you know, seabass, seabass, seagrass beds that are being that are around the coastline that are already suffering and they're already causing manatee populations to dwindle and starve. We're going to see a loss of those just because, you know, there's not going to be sun that's going to penetrate these algal blooms. Potentially these algal was when they die, they can land on it, smothering those seagrass beds. These seagrass beds are not only food for manatees, but they're also nursery grounds for other fish. So we're going to see a long term effect if this continues to happen over the next couple of years over and it's already happened with the last few years. And so we're going to see more and more of that destruction, more and more of that change as we go along. Not good in general. And so that's where, you know, we're at with this temperature increase. You know, some people might look at that headline and be like, oh, well, we barely hit 100. We're in the mid 90s. It's nice outside. I love mid 90s. I love the heat. That's well and good. But a lot of the environments, a lot of the habitats in the ocean cannot handle this type of heat for long. And if we continue to see this heat go throughout the summer, we're going to start to see some changes. It's not a good thing. This is something to panic over. Really. It's something to worry about. It's something that makes you say we need to do something. We need to find that hope. We need to find those champions in politics to start curbing these areas where we're causing more and more of this heat in the atmosphere because we haven't really decreased. I'm going to tell you that right now. We have a lot of work to do globally to decrease as global temperatures, global sea surface temperatures and global atmospheric temperatures hit some big numbers over the last couple of weeks. I think Tuesday coming into the beginning of July was one of the hottest days ever recorded globally. That's insane. That's insane. So we're not getting any better. And it's going to get worse before it gets better. But we need to really curb that. And some of the industries, some of the countries are really starting to do something because they realize what kind of a pickle we're in. And there's an article in the conversation.com. I'm going to link to it in the show notes called Why the shipping industries increase climate ambition spells the end of its fossil fuel use. Now, this is not saying that the industry is going to go without fossil fuels tomorrow or next year or even within the next 10 or 15 years. We're talking 20, 30 years from now. But there was a revised strategy that was that was negotiated in London. It has been criticized for not being ambitious enough. However, the forecast growth in global trade and the world's shipping fleet means that the reductions required of individual ships are much greater than the overall greenhouse gas emission targets. So the new targets for international shipping are reductions of 20 percent from a 2008 baseline striving for 30 percent by 2030, reductions of 70 percent striving for 80 percent by 2040 and net zero emissions by or around i.e. close to 2050. So obviously, these dates are not set in stone. They're looking at what is what's required. And this organ, the authors here, Christian, the Buchler and Tristan Smith. Christian, the Buchler and Tristan Smith, they are calculating that the strategy will require cuts in emissions per ship of up to 60 percent by 2030 and as much as 91 percent by 2040. This means the days of fossil fueled ships are numbered. OK, so they you know, this article goes through a lot of things. It's saying it's edging closer to limiting warming to one percent as global shipping emissions rank within the top 10 countries. So if you look at the emissions, you look at shipping emissions, you look at countries for emissions, the industry should do its fair share in keeping the global warming below one point five degrees Celsius. So if you look at there's a top 10 emitting countries plus global shipping, it says if international shipping were a country, it would rank. It would be among the top 10 carbon dioxide emitters based on 2021 annual emissions from fossil fuel combustion and and industry in metric tons. So if you look at it, China is the top with 11 billion. The United States is five billion. India is two billion. Russia is one billion. Japan is over one billion. Iran is 700 million. Germany is about almost 700 million. Saudi Arabia, almost 700 million. And then shipping is at about 667 million metric tons of carbon emission from fossil fuel combustion. OK, that is not good for the shipping industry. If we can lower that, that could take a big hit. That could that could cause a big hit in the amount that the shipping industry produces. So which is which is wonderful. And it was negotiated at the headquarters of the International Marine Organization. This revised strategy is the UN is the United Nations agency that regulates the shipping and is backed by science based targets initiative. Several Pacific Island states, New Zealand, the US, the UK and Canada had proposed emission cuts of at least 37 percent by 2030, 96 percent by 2040 and the absolute zero by 2050. An initial strategy adopted in 2018 aimed at reducing aimed to reduce shipping emissions by at least 50 percent by 2050. So obviously these you know, the last plan, the last strategy adopted in 2018 was heavily criticized. Now we're seeing, you know, 50 percent added on 50 percent to go net zero by 2050. So that's better, which is which is good. But the revised strategies targets are not as high as those called for by the science and the most ambitious governments. However, they are still fairly stringent at a shipping level, at a ship level. So individual ship level. So shipping volumes have grown by more than 50 percent since 20 since 2008 with further growth expected. Increasing numbers of ships means mean average emission reductions per ship will need to be about 54 to 60 percent by 2030 and 86 to 91 percent by 2040. That's a lot of numbers I'm giving you here. What we're looking at here is there's definitely an increase in the last strategy of 2018 to reduce the emissions from fossil fuel and combustion. And so it's it's even though these numbers are highly insufficient from the end when he talks about the initial strategy, putting shipping on a pathway consistent with the three to four degrees Celsius of warming to estimate the new targets compare assuming the strategy's measures that are not yet adopted will be effective. They can be superimposed on a graph that's in there and you can look at it and it's looked at highly insufficient. The all these, you know, when you look at the initial strategy compared to the new strategy, the initial strategy was very insufficient. And so, you know, we're into more of just the efficient and then getting down to what should be below one point five by 2050. Now, of course, when you have these types of strategies, you look at the strategy like, is this actually going to happen? That's yet to be seen. It really comes down to the industry and how they put pressure on the individual ships, which means the individual countries and how that information is transparently communicated to the public and to the industry and to the United Nations and the IMO, International Maritime Organization. So here are some of the key elements of the new net strategy. The revised strategy calls for net zero GHG emissions. Unfortunately, it's by or around 2050. The term net leaves an unfortunate loophole for future use of emission offsets. It's it's big enough for the giant container ship ever given to steam through. This ambiguity has been left for future negotiations to resolve. So hopefully that'll get better. So there's a couple of things here to set target emissions on a well to wake basis, covering emissions from both fuel production and combustion, including upstream emissions and ensures shipping decarbonization does not shift emissions ashore. Being required to achieve these reductions will fundamentally and rapidly change the sector's technology and energy supply change. Decarbonization will drive up shipping shipping costs. So developing countries fear the impacts will be much greater for them than for the developed countries, which always seems to be the case. Small island developing states and least developing countries bear most bear almost no historical responsibility for the climate crisis. They have called for a just and equitable transition. So to have countries with large numbers of countries, so to have countries with large number of maritime workers like the Philippines, as well as the International Transport Workers Federation representing these workers. So to deliver a policy that both reduce reduces emissions and supports a just and equitable transition, the revised strategy includes a commitment to finalize a basket of candidate measures, both technical and economic. So the technical measure is a fuel standard that ratchets down the permissibility or the permissible emissions intensity of fuels over time. This proved uncontroversial. The candidate economic measures to price emissions did not get not all get get broad support. For example, mandatory universal emissions levy proposed by the Marshall Islands and the Solomon Islands was strongly opposed by countries like China, Brazil and Argentina for fear it might harm their exports. They say many small island developing states and least developed countries back a levy that they see it as the most environmentally effective companion to fuel standard. A price on emissions will speed up the transition while revenues from the levy can can be used to support a just and equitable transition. As a result of these political differences, more work needs to be done to resolve the specifics of emissions pricing mechanism. So that's in the article. I'll put the link in there. I was directly from the article. Most of the stuff I'm taking is from the article. So obviously there needs to be there still needs to be revisions to this revised plan and it still needs to be negotiated even further. This is a start. Unfortunately, the question remains, is this sort of beginning of this negotiation or continued negotiation? Will that affect what's going to happen in the future? Will that affect what's going to happen? You know, will that have an effect on climate reductions, on GHG reductions? That's the big question. And the other thing, too, is I know I haven't covered a lot of shipping on this on this podcast. Maybe I should start doing a little bit more talk to people in the shipping industry. But what are some of the new technologies that's going to reduce the dependency on fossil fuels? If you or anyone knows that, please reach out to me at how to protect the ocean on Instagram. That's at how to protect the ocean on Instagram. I'd love to interview somebody that has information on the new technologies that either works in the industry or has a lot of knowledge of the shipping industry, because it'll be really good to know and to provide for the rest of the how to protect the ocean podcast audience and community. But that's it for today. You know, there's there's there's some some crazy news of sea surface temperatures and it looks like we're in for a crazy summer, which obviously is not a fun thing to talk about. But then there's some hope in revised strategies for the shipping industry, recognizing that, you know, indeed they are producing just as much GHG emissions as other countries. Will these countries abide by this new revised strategy? How will it be communicated? Will it be transparent? Those are the questions that remain. And can it get better in the future? And this is where I'm going to tell you right now. This is where voting happens, but like voting counts in terms of voting in your own countries and voting for people who are willing to do this. Bring this up with your local government, your federal government, your provincial or state government. But I also think that this is where, you know, people going into like industries like shipping, people, you know, working with the UN or for the UN really matter. So if you're thinking about careers, I know a lot of us think about careers like being in the field, being on a boat, doing academic research, which is fantastic. It's great to have those types of scientists. But also policymakers matter. Policymakers have a huge, a huge influence on how we are doing this in the future, how we are going to step forward and having these revised negotiations. Doesn't matter the industry, whether you're in the ocean, in the shipping industry, when it comes down to it, they're going to need experts. They're going to need people to drive policy on national and international levels for us to really do something good. And that's where it really comes down to. That's where the work is going to come down. So if you're considering a career in ocean conservation, policy is going to be really, really important. So I highly recommend that you go into that. And if you have any questions on careers, please let me know. We do offer a five dollar a month private podcast on on all things careers and looking at strategies. And so looking at, you know, industries that may not be completely or directly related to ocean conservation is still a good chance that you can work in this type of field and work for these industries as someone who represents the environment, as somebody who is going to be benefiting the environment. So that's if you just go to speak up for blue dot com forward slash career, you can get access to that program right away. It's five dollars a month. U.S. And you'll get access to at least 25 episodes of career strategy, job advertisements and so forth. So something that somebody consider and something that would be really helpful for the ocean. But that's it for today's episode. Again, if you want to contact me, if you have questions, comments or anything related to this episode or the podcast, you can hit me up at how to protect the ocean on Instagram. That's at how to protect the ocean. And if if you want to share this with a friend, please feel free to do so. All you have to do is just copy the link on the app that you're listening to share it with your friend. It's free. It's nice to do and it helps us grow this show. But that's it for today's episode on the how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm your host, Angelou, and have a great day. We'll talk to you next time. And happy conservation.