Maritime workers back campaign to reduce shipping emissions to net zero

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand is back­ing a glob­al work­er-led cam­paign to reduce emis­sions in the ship­ping indus­try to net zero by 2050.

The Mar­itime Union is an affil­i­ate of the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers’ Fed­er­a­tion (ITF). The ITF is attend­ing COP26 in Glas­gow to pro­mote sus­tain­able ship­ping and a just tran­si­tion to a post-car­bon econ­o­my.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Nation­al Sec­re­tary Craig Har­ri­son says new tech­nolo­gies have the poten­tial to mas­sive­ly reduce pol­lu­tion and emis­sions.

“As a geo­graph­i­cal­ly remote, mar­itime trad­ing nation, New Zealand needs to be in the fore­front of inno­va­tion and social­ly respon­si­ble change in mar­itime trans­port.”

He says even with cur­rent tech­nol­o­gy, domes­tic coastal ship­ping is the most low impact freight mode avail­able with­in New Zealand.

Mr Har­ri­son says the Mar­itime Union is work­ing with Gov­ern­ment and indus­try to build New Zealand’s coastal ship­ping capa­bil­i­ty.

He says a greater role for domes­tic coastal ship­ping is essen­tial to reduce emis­sions, and to build New Zealand’s resilience to wors­en­ing con­ges­tion in glob­al sup­ply chains.

The ITF is pro­mot­ing eight ‘fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples for a just tran­si­tion’ to make sure the decar­bon­i­sa­tion of the indus­try includes work­ers’ voic­es, as the indus­try tests alter­na­tive fuels, redesigns skills and career path­ways, and shifts employ­ment from fos­sil fuels to alter­na­tive fuel bunker­ing sys­tems.

Inter­na­tion­al ship­ping has not been explic­it­ly includ­ed in the land­mark Paris Agree­ment or its pre­de­ces­sors, which aims to lim­it glob­al tem­per­a­ture increase to 1.5°C.

To bring inter­na­tion­al ship­ping into line with the Paris Agree­ment, the ITF is call­ing for the indus­try and reg­u­la­tors to com­mit to a tar­get of zero-car­bon by 2050.

The Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers’ Fed­er­a­tion (ITF) is a demo­c­ra­t­ic, affil­i­ate-led glob­al union fed­er­a­tion that con­nects near­ly 700 affil­i­at­ed trade unions from 150 coun­tries. The ITF is the voice for near­ly 20 mil­lion work­ing men and women across the world.