Shipping to steer cleaner carbon course

BBC News, By Richard Black, Environment correspondent, Cancun, Mexico, 6 December 2010

Ships could be charged different fees to dock depending on how much carbon they emit, according to ideas being discussed at the UN climate summit.

Gains of 30% in shipping emissions could come just
from efficiency improvements to cargo ships

The government of Papua New Guinea is considering the plan, and is hoping other nations may become involved.

The Carbon War Room, co-founded by Sir Richard Branson, has launched an online tool grading 60,000 commercial vessels according to their emissions.

Shipping contributes about 1Gt of CO2 each year, more than the entire UK.

Currently shipping fuels are exempt from national carbon accounts, which has caused much head-scratching about how their emissions could be curbed.

Ranked, filed

The new approach is to give businesses the tool they need to selectively use lower-emitting vessels.

"The Carbon War Room has been advocating the need for business to play a leading role in the fight to reduce carbon emissions," said Sir Richard.

"This data hub for shipping will help the key players in the industry and their customers make better decisions for their businesses and ultimately, the planet."

CANCUN CLIMATE SUMMIT

• Climate talks see compromise mood
• Hot and cold oil in Cancun climate
• Poorer nations 'need carbon cuts'

Data for 60,000 ships, including many of the big, long-distance carriers, has been put in to the website using data from international registers and methods developed by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).

The project's initiators hope that big corporations in particular will selectively use low-carbon carriers, encouraging all operators to improve their operations and reducing the industry's overall carbon footprint.

"We're hoping that companies like Nike or Walmart will go for it for two reasons," said Peter Boyd of the Carbon War Room.

"Firstly, they're concerned about greening their brands, but also about securing their supply chains."

But, he said, he was also intrigued by the idea that governments could set differential landing charges for ships depending on their emissions.

Papua New Guinea's delegate to the UN climate convention meeting, Kevin Conrad, told BBC News his government was considering the idea as part of a bigger package of measures designed to cut carbon through engagement with the private sector.

"Our duty is to find those that are leading the charge in the private sector, and work with them to achieve our climate goals," he said.

The ships would be rated on an A-G scale according to their efficiency.

The scheme's labels look very similar to the ratings given to consumer electrical goods such as refrigerators in the EU, which have helped drive up standards.

The Carbon War Room - a non-profit organisation aiming to "harness the power of entrepreneurs" to curb climate change - is hoping that ship owners will voluntarily choose to lodge their emissions data on the website shippingeffiency.org in order to boost their profile.

They calculate that global shipping emissions could be cut by about 30% just through increasing efficiency, although much greater gains could materialise in future as designers pursue new - or revisit old - concepts such as sails, kites and solar power.

Ships could be charged different fees to dock depending on how much carbon they emit, according to ideas being discussed on the sidelines of the UN climate summit.

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Exclusive: Submarine Dive Finds Oil, Dead Sea Life at Bottom of Gulf of Mexico

Though Region is Healing, Damage From BP Spill Persists on Ocean Floor, Scientists Say

ABC News-US, By MATT GUTMAN and SARAH NETTER, Dec. 3, 2010

WATCH: Gulf Oil Spill: Six Months Later

WATCH: Tony Hayward Admits BP Got It Wrong

WATCH: BP Blaming Others for Oil Spill

A mile below the surface in the Gulf of Mexico, there is little sign of life.

"It looks like everything's dead," University of Georgia professor Samantha Joye said.

U.S. Navy's deep-ocean research submersible Alvin

In an exclusive trip aboard the U.S. Navy's deep-ocean research submersible Alvin, ABC News was given the chance to observe the impact of this summer's massive oil spill that most will never see.

The ocean floor appears to be littered with twigs, but Joye points out that they are actually dead worms and that Alvin is sitting on top of what is considered an 80-square mile kill zone.

Having taken nearly two dozen dives in the Gulf inside the tiny sub that helped discover the Titanic, Joye is leading a team of scientists who are investigating how much oily material is left on the sea floor.

Aboard the Alvin Thursday, Joey said she saw "about three to four inches of material."

That as BP, the company responsible for the spill, is challenging government estimates that 200 million gallons of crude spill from its runaway well. London-based BP now insists it's half that.

But 5,000 feet down, the oil appears to be everywhere. The government estimates that less than 25 percent of the oil remains, but these scientists say it's not gone, just settled at the bottom of the ocean.

And the work they are doing can be dangerous.

"You've got two boats out in the middle of the ocean meeting and then you're transferring people and gear, which is kind of sketchy to being with when it's calm like this," said the captain, Scott Sullivan, "but when you get offshore and it's a little rough, everything tends to be a lot more dangerous and on the water it happens a lot faster. So we're going to think safety first and teamwork second."

The boat that launches the Alvin -- the Atlantis -- is stationed some 50 miles offshore.

Alvin carries weights to drop to the sea floor, turning slowly as it descends. As the submarine drops, the pressure outside increases. And it is cold – the temperature of the near-freezing water. Everyone on board is bundled in layers of sweatshirts and blankets. The habitable part of the sphere is roughly the size of an car's interior.

But their work, they say, needs to be seen.

Gulf of Mexico Starting to Heal, but Effects of Oil Linger

The water in most places appears to be clear, a stark contrast to the oil that covered miles of ocean after the April 20 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, which killed 11 workers.

But Joye said what was once on the surface has now sunk.

She told ABC News in September that samples taken from the ocean floor consistently show oil contamination.

"We're finding it everywhere that we've looked. The oil is not gone," Joye in September. "It's in places where nobody has looked for it."

But there are signs that the Gulf of Mexico is healing. Marinas deserted over the summer have become busy once again. With most of the area re-opened to fishing boats, captains and fisherman are hard at work.

Crews have also found healthier animals, especially the among the bird population around Grand Terre Island, La.

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Oceans failing the acid test, U.N. says

CNN News, By Matthew Knight for CNN, December 2, 2010

Acidification is is putting stress on ocean ecosystems,
threatening biodiversity and food security says the U.N.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• New U.N. report highlights threat to marine organisms posed by ocean acidification
• A quarter of CO2 emissions are absorbed by the oceans
• Around three billion people worldwide rely on fish for key nutrients
• Acidification risen by 30 percent since Industrial Revolution according to U.N.

(CNN) -- The chemistry of the world's oceans is changing at a rate not seen for 65 million years, with far-reaching implications for marine biodiversity and food security, according to a new United Nations study released Thursday.

"Environmental Consequences of Ocean Acidification," published by the U.N. Environmental Program (UNEP)," warns that some sea organisms including coral and shellfish will find it increasingly difficult to survive, as acidification shrinks the minerals needed to form their skeletons.

Lead author of the report Carol Turley, from the UK's Plymouth Marine Laboratory said in a statement: "We are seeing an overall negative impact from ocean acidification directly on organisms and on some key ecosystems that help provide food for billions. We need to start thinking about the risk to food security."

Tropical reefs provide shelter and food for around a quarter of all known marine fish species, according to the U.N. report, while over one billion people rely on fish as a key source of protein.

RELATED TOPICS

• Nature and the Environment
• Global Climate Change
• Environmental Protection

Increasing acidification is likely to affect the growth and structural integrity of coral reef, the study says, and coupled with ocean warming could limit the habitats of crabs, mussels and other shellfish with knock-on effects up and down the food chain.

The report, unveiled during the latest round of U.N. climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, says that around a quarter of the world's CO2 emissions are currently being absorbed by the oceans, where they are turned into carbonic acid.

Overall, pH levels in seas and oceans worldwide have fallen by an average of 30 percent since the Industrial Revolution. The report predicts that by the end of this century ocean acidity will have increased 150 percent, if emissions continue to rise at the current rate.

But scientists say there may well be winners and losers as acidification doesn't affect all sea creatures in the same way.

Adult lobsters, for example, may increase their shell-building as pH levels fall, as might brittle stars -- a close relation of the starfish -- but at the cost of muscle formation.

"The ability, or inability, to build calcium-based skeletons may not be the only impact of acidification on the health and viability of an organism: brittle stars perhaps being a case in point," Turley said in a statement.

"It is clearly not enough to look at a species. Scientists will need to study all parts of the life-cycle to see whether certain forms are more or less vulnerable."

Scientists are more certain about the fate of photosynthetic organisms such as seagrasses, saying they are likely to benefit from rising acidification and that some creatures will simply adapt to the changing chemistry of the oceans.

The authors identify a range of measures which policymakers need to consider to stop pH levels falling further, including "rapid and substantial cuts" to CO2 emissions as well as assessing the vulnerability of communities which rely on marine resources.

"Ocean acidification is yet another red flag being raised, carrying planetary health warnings about the uncontrolled growth in greenhouse gas emissions. It is a new and emerging piece in the scientific jigsaw puzzle, but one that is triggering rising concern," Achim Steiner, UNEP executive director, said in a statement.