Shipping

UN calls for emission cuts in international shipping

No one is immune to the impact of climate change, the head of the United Nations Maritime Agency said last week in a message urging world leaders to reach agreement at an international conference aimed at firming up an effective greenhouse gas reduction pact in December.

A vessel carrying containers

'Mankind is on the horns of a dilemma,' said Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) Efthimios Mitropoulos.

In a message marking World Maritime Day, the theme of which this year is 'Climate Change: a challenge for IMO too!,' Mitropoulos said that whether 'we like it or not, our collective way of life has become unsustainable and we need to do something about it, and soon.

'The choices we have made about the way we lead our lives have been slowly eating away at the very support system that enables us to live and breathe,' said Mitropoulos. 'This cannot, and should not, go on.'

His message came on the same day that the Britain's Chamber of Shipping, backed by the national shipping associations of Australia, Belgium, Norway and Sweden, released a discussion paper calling for the global shipping industry to be included into a carbon trading net.

The discussion paper 'A Global Cap and Trade System to Reduce Carbon Emissions from International Shipping' was released in part to offset mounting pressure by IMO to decide on a mechanism to curb carbon emissions from shipping.

The European Commission also has threatened to fold shipping into its European Trading System (ETS) if the IMO fails to come to a decision. The IMO has yet to decide whether it should opt for a cap-and-trade system, in which shipowners trade permits to emit carbon dioxide, or a levy or a tax.

The shipping industry has no choice but to address its carbon emissions, said vice-president of the UK chamber Jan Kopernicki in an interview with the London Times. Shipping accounts for three percent of the global carbon emissions from human activity, and the cost of reducing emissions would have to be passed on to customers, which could prove troublesome to the shipping market already in distress due to the collapse in world trade.

The five shipping groups behind the proposal have declined to propose specific targets or timetables and have admitted it likely would be hard to gain consensus from other countries.

'We believe some form of emissions trading system is the way to reduce carbon outputs. But it is vital that any emissions trading regime be implemented without driving goods to other modes of transport, which would increase overall emissions and damage commercial shipping,' said Kjaedegaard. Source: GLOBE-Net

Shipping industry faces crisis

Craig McKune and Mercury Reporter

South Africa's maritime industry is "slipping through our hands", leading the country towards an economic crisis, said the head of the SA Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA).

In comments that have strong significance for Durban, as the country's premier port, Samsa chief executive Tsietsi Mokhele said that "heavy" legislation made it uncompetitive for companies to own South African-registered ships.

This meant the country was losing out on business and job-creation opportunities. Also, the only vessel trading under the South African flag - the 29-year-old Safmarine Oranje - would be decommissioned next year. This meant there would be no ships available to train maritime students, deepening the sector's skills crisis.

Mokhele was speaking to members of the transport and maritime industry and maritime school pupils at a World Maritime Day celebration in Cape Town, on Friday.

It was widely believed the South African maritime industry should support about 300 ships, but legislation meant the sector could not compete internationally, he said.

It was expensive for ships to be registered in South Africa; there was no formal policy around developing skills to support a growing shipping industry; and shipping companies were low on the list to be paid off by bankrupt clients. Legislation around these issues would be tabled in Parliament later this year, Mokhele said.

While maritime schools produced 120 university graduates a year, the country would need more than 10 times that number to support 300 ships, yet the decommissioning of the Oranje meant schooling would only dwindle.

According to Mokhele, the South African economy was heavily reliant on seaborne trade.

Oil tanker runs aground in Mississippi River

A Singapore-flagged tanker carrying more than 600,000 gallons (2.2 million liters) of crude oil ran aground in the Mississippi River in the early hours of Monday, the US Coast Guard said.

"The tank vessel Eagle Tucson was traveling upbound. It was at mile marker three on the lower Mississippi River" in Louisiana when it grounded at around 2:45 am (0745 GMT), Coast Guard spokeswoman Elizabeth Bordelon told AFP. Four tugboats were on the scene to try to shift the grounded tanker, and two more were heading towards the boat to try to help with the effort, Lloyds MIU Casualty Service reported. Lloyds confirmed earlier reports from the US Coast Guard that there are "no signs of oil leaking or water ingress." The vessel was sailing from Puerto Jose in Venezuela to Chalmette, Louisiana, according to Lloyds. The Eagle Tucson is registered to London-based AET Inc. Ltd and sails under the Singapore flag, according to the Equasis website, which posts safety-related information about ships on the Internet. A "lightering" vessel was standing by to offload the ship's cargo and make it lighter if the tugs are unable to budge the stranded tanker, Bordelon said. An investigation is under way to determine why the vessel ran aground. AFP

Pirate attacks off Somali coast increasing -US Navy

The US Navy said on Tuesday that pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia have recently increased.

There have been four attempted attacks on motor vessels in the Gulf of Aden since September 19, bringing the total number of piracy attacks on merchant vessels in 2009 to 146, of which 28 have been successful, the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet said in a statement.

"We make every attempt to intercept the skiffs with pirate paraphernalia before they can attack a merchant ship," said Scott E. Sanders, who heads multinational Combined Task Force (CTF) 151.

"We're not being passive out here; we're being proactive. We are creating an environment in which pirates are not so bold."

Multinational forces monitor the waters of the Gulf of Aden and surrounding areas to defend commercial and fishing vessels in an attempt to keep the area safe for trade and passage.

More than 30,000 vessels transit the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden annually, heading to and from the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, but they face the risk of being attacked and hijacked by the heavily armed pirates, who use high-powered speed boats.

The pirates prey on ships, sometimes holding them for weeks before releasing them for large ransoms paid by governments or ship owners.

More than 150 suspected pirates were arrested by naval patrols in the region in 2008.

According to Ecoterra International, an NGO monitoring illegal maritime activities in the region, at least 163 attacks have been carried out by Somali pirates since the start of 2009 alone, 47 of them successful hijackings.

AFP