Pacific Environment - Protecting the Living Environment of the Pacific Rim

Ships using heavy fuel oil to power their engines are threatening marine ecosystems, people’s health and the global climate.

Carnival, the world’s largest cruise line operator, needs to do its part to move the shipping sector toward zero emission shipping.

Carnival claims that sustainability and human rights are core company values, but it cannot be an environmental leader while burning one of the dirtiest fossil fuels in the pristine landscapes of Alaska and the Arctic.

We think it’s high time that Carnival, with over 40% of the global market share and 10 brands that operate worldwide, respects the will of Arctic peoples and ends its use of heavy fuel oil in this fragile and imperiled region.

That’s why we co-founded the Clean Up Carnival coalition in 2018. And in October, the coalition delivered over 100,000 signatures from activists across Europe and North America to Carnival’s headquarters in the UK. Together, we are demanding that cruise ship operator Carnival clean up its dirty ships.

At the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco this past fall, we co-hosted the only event showcasing the solutions people are working on to get ships off fossil fuels.

The Paris Agreement will succeed only if shipping reduces carbon emissions immediately and radically—if not, shipping will sink the agreement’s ambitious goal to keep global warming from increasing more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

With the Norwegian government and climate funder ClimateWorks, we put together a panel of government leaders, shipping executives, energy innovators, and customer companies that rely on trade.

These experts provided diverse perspectives on how the interplay between policy, innovation and forward-looking industries can deliver zero emission trade and ship transport–faster than you think.

Eighty percent of the world’s trade gets carried by ships. Zero emission shipping reduces the carbon footprint of every imported and manufactured product in the world, from bananas to beds, soybeans to smartphones.

But the transformation to zero-emission transportation will require coordination among policymakers, technologists, investors and industries.

Ambitious policies, investments in research & development, and forward-looking industries all have a part to play to achieve zero emission transportation at scale and at speed.

We are now using the lessons learned at this event to help build an international campaign that will push the shipping industry to take immediate action to reduce carbon pollution from ships.