Virgin Group founder and ocean sustainability advocate, entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, expressed his sadness and solidarity with the environmental scene in Mauritius in the Indian Ocean following a primary oil spill.
Speaking from his home on Necker Island in the Caribbean the day before, he called for significant adjustments to global navigation after the downing of Japanese sending wakashio, which triggered a primary oil spill that was poorly managed and has now led to one of the largest.environmental errors never found in the Indian Ocean at the center of a network of nature reserves.
On a Saturday morning broadcast on Tuesday, August 18, he said:
“Mauritius is known for its beautiful sandy beaches, crystal clear waters and biodiversity.It is groundbreaking to see photographs of islanders seeking to hide the great oil spill of a global shipping company that occurs at the center of its largest coral lagoon.
Global shipping deserves to take on its day-to-day work and supply others in Mauritius to remove pollutants and ensure long-term site-round monitoring and rehabilitation.
Clean pioneer
Virgin Group is known for being at the forefront of new technologies and disruptive ideas, and has earned a reputation for doing business while advocating for change.They are also pioneers in the progression of choice and the most sustainable low carbon fuels.
The organization called for a blank fuel revolution in global shipping, Carbon War Room, presented through Richard Branson and Virgin Unite in 2009, which aimed to move transportation to more sustainable alternatives, as well as expand blank energy roadmaps for small island economies.Despite more than a decade of primary efforts and victories, the shipping industry has stubbornly refused to make genuine adjustments to greater sustainability and security through itself, which activists are calling for.
Sir Richard Branson is also a member of Ocean Elders, an influential organization of 23 business leaders and governments around the world who have championed a more sustainable ocean. Among the Ocean Elders are Prince Albert of Monaco, former U.S. Undersecretary of State Catherine Novelli., Queen Noor of Jordan, ocean explorers Sylvia Earle and Jean-Michele Cousteau, solar aviation pioneer Bertrand Piccard, director James Cameron, British primatologist Jane Goodall, CNN founder Ted Turner, and local Hawaiian navigator Nainoa Thompson, who sailed around the Pacific in a double-hulled Polynesian Canoe.
On the day he revealed that the Mauritius government was making plans to get rid of Wakashio, the world’s largest shipping elegance, in a highly ecologically delicate site known for its whale hatcheries, there were big questions about global shipping.
The expedition withdrew from the Paris Agreement.
The global shipping industry has been pushing to be excluded from the Paris Agreement on climate change.They argued that global maritime transport emissions accounted for 3% of global carbon emissions.
However, in addition to carbon, it is the type of fuel used in the global shipping industry that has been particularly problematic.Heavier engine oil is the thickest residue of crude oil.Its composition is the consistency of black peanut butter and will have to be The Wakashio Natural Tar asphalt well in the rainy marshes was built in 2007 and all ships built since then continue to use those polluting fuels, which has been linked to the highest degrees of headaches and human health cancer.port cities around the world.
This blend of heavy-engined oil and diesel generates gigantic amounts of poisonous air pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide. Global shipping emissions account for 8% of all sulphur dioxide emissions in the world, making it one of the most polluting and one of acid rain.
Too much to regulate
The global shipping industry argued that it was too giant and that self-regulation of industry through the IMO was the solution to meeting climate commitments.through many environmentalists like ‘too little, too late, too far’ every month or year, and instead point to remote targets to stop the vital steps required today.
Just as recalcitrant automotive has had to be kicked and howled towards a more sustainable electric and autonomous future, so can global shipping.
It remains the only industry in the world that stands out as a dinosaur relic from a past carbon era, whose fate now turns out to be connected to Wakashio’s.The Wakashio has traveled thousands of miles across a direct ocean, immersing itself in one of the largest and best-preserved coral reef structures in the region and spilling its dark content into the fragile ecosystems around it.
Hitting the center of a biodiversity hot spot
The Wakashio, the largest elegance of ships in the ocean and similar in length to the largest American aircraft carriers of all time, Nimitz elegance, crashed into the existing coral reefs of the small volcanic island of Mauritius on July 25 and began to separate for about 12 days later, after scraping its exclusive giant hull opposite the pristine coral lagoon of the Indian State for about a kilometre , this was his run-off as desperate islanders looked helpless, asking for foreign help.
The next rescue and recovery attempt, which was overseen through the ship’s owners and requested through the maritime regulator, the London-based International Maritime Organization, suffered a series of catastrophic disorders in which a real-time SAR satellite investigation revealed that hydrocarbon cover dams were insufficient.poorly deployed, allowing loads of thousands of gallons of engine poison fuel into the pristine lagoon.It is now estimated that up to 300,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil were poured into the lagoon (50% more than the shipowners revealed on August 11), which is even more poisonous than if it were a crude spill, given Mauritius’ sunny climate.
The site was in the midst of several UNESCO-protected corals, turtle nesting spaces, mangrove forests, low ebony forests, meadows and habitats vital for fish rearing, as well as the site of a prominent ancient Napoleonic war with many shipwrecks still nearby.At the time of writing, it is not known whether one of those remains, which have been highly protected and have remained intact for more than two hundred years, was affected by the effect of Wakashio and the upcoming oil spill.highly protected from human interference for decades.
A slow and confident change industry
If the global shipping industry had moved away from these high-carbon fuels and also strengthened the hulls of those giant ships to be double-strength, as the oil and fuel industry had to do after the Exxon-Valdex crude oil spill off the Coast of Alaska in 1989 – this crisis might not have been so severe.The location of the destination turn site and the next spill has put thousands of rare and endangered species discovered only around the site of the destination turn, now endangered as local NGOs in Mauritius rush to save them, knowing that many of those iconic plants and trees, adding The last ebony forest endemic to lowlands in Mauritius , cannot be transported.
Questions also continue to arise about the effects of heavy motor oil on warmer tropical waters, which pose a greater threat and toxicity than a crude oil leak at this latitude.Mauritius, as well as plans to phase them out in the Arctic.However, the crisis in Mauritius shows many failures in foreign shipping, as if these heavy fuels are absolutely prohibited and whether all vessels must be double-hulled to avoid commercial injury of this magnitude.
Maritime industry: “we’re doing enough”
What, as an innocent foundation, sank temporarily into the greatest ecological crisis facing the Indian Ocean, characterized by leadership disorders and guilty of the control and protection of the shipment and oil spill that followed, where the great self-organized voluntary effort had to save the island and its nature from further destruction.
In response to the question of whether global shipping has a greater duty to switch to cleaner alternatives, no comment was provided through the ship’s owner, Nagashiki Shipping Co Ltd.
Instead, inter president of INTERGARO (International Dry Cargo Shipowners Association), Captain Jay K.Pillai said: “One priority will be to locate blank fuel for navigation that the IMO has regulated.The shipping industry will have to reduce CO2 emissions by up to 40% by 2030 and up to 70% by 2050 from 2008 degrees and without carbon in the 21st century.
Flags of complacency in guilt: will the G20 act?
Since the vessel is owned by Japan, but flying the Panamanian flag, experts must fly for a full inspection and turn report of the destination.This complex loophole in foreign maritime regulations adds even more confusion to a local setting where thousands of islanders have volunteered to cut their hair and make homemade prey with sugar cane grass.drying and its garments to protect the coast of the Mauritius Sea.
This is striking in view in a country that ranks as the “Singapore of Africa” with vital sectors specializing in monetary services, data technology, agriculture, textiles and tourism, and which is a middle-income country of the higher group.
The G20 promised strong monetary reform after the 2008 and 2011 monetary crises, however, they have refused to deal with flags of convenience in the shipping industry for more than a decade.
As anger continues to rise in Beirut over how a Moldovan flag shipment may be guilty of more than $15 billion in damage to the city, an even bigger crisis may be brewing off the coast of Yemen with a million-barrel tanker truck beginning to disintegrate.and endangered the entire Red Sea region in the face of what would be an even greater environmental disaster than Mauritius.French President Emmanuel Macron hastened to turn to the other Lebanese people in the wake of the accident, but was temporarily surrounded by angry Lebanese calling for reforms.
‘Big Shipping’ of a new generation
Global shipping has traditionally been described as “the engine of economic growth” that drives the global economy and sends global goods.That’s a lot of “globals” as globalization begins to shrink.
In a world where a younger generation is more sensitive to its carbon footprint and where local production is opening up amid geopolitical tensions and the coronavirus pandemic, it remains if this industry represents the future.
In other historic polluting industries, the industry has failed on its own, as evidenced by the Volkswagen emissions scandal, which ended up costing the company $ 25 billion. The shipping industry has not even developed technologies that can be used independently to determine your sulfur. Emission declarations at the time of adoption of such measures (called sewerage technologies).
Global shipping continues to invest less than 2% of its turnover in IT. To ensure the protection of citizens around the world, the lowest proportion of any sector. The banking sector, for example, invests more than 10%, which has allowed them to realize new tactics to reduce their carbon footprint.
With global technology giants like Amazon AMZN 4.1% starting to integrate further back from delivery to the garage through warehouse logistics and transportation, and with those tech giants subject to environmental criteria superior to global shipping, a global industry is being written to continue.Also.
G20: a and leadership crisis
As the world faces an ongoing coronavirus pandemic that shows the structural deficiencies of existing approaches to global governance, the timing and largest wave of the climate crisis are being taken seriously through business leaders and governments as the world continues to exceed its goals.
Even the purpose of the Paris Agreement itself, related to climate replacing 2C referred to in the global shipping industry, will not be enough to save the world’s coral reefs, as a prominent foreign clinical report has shown.Ambitions still want to be 25% higher.The twist of Wakashio’s fate didn’t help.
There are transparent movements that the organization of the G20’s hard nations can take.French President Macon has made the surrounding area such an important priority for his presidential platform.However, within weeks, he is now concerned about two multimillion-dollar maritime injuries rooted in the way the global shipping industry is regulated, with a time bomb waiting in the Red Sea with an abandoned oil tanker of about 1 million barrels, disintegrating, triggering an even greater disaster in the region.adopt such reforms.
Meanwhile, the Wakashio crisis continues to last up to 25 days as the Mauritius government and rescue team plan to sink the shipment into the center of one of the region’s major whale breeding sites, one of those in the Indian Ocean.