For a preview of what a hotter, more geopolitically unstable future might look like, you don’t have to go much further than the world’s shipping lanes—the daily commute for most of our consumer goods.
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00:00 (gentle music)
00:02 For a preview of what a changed climate
00:04 and more geopolitically unstable future might look like,
00:07 take a look at the world's shipping lanes,
00:10 the daily commute for most of our consumer goods.
00:13 (gentle music)
00:15 Drought exacerbated by global warming
00:21 has reduced traffic through the Panama Canal by 40%.
00:25 And shipping through the Suez Canal,
00:27 linking Europe to Asia, has also come to a new standstill
00:31 as Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen
00:33 escalate attacks on Red Sea cargo ships
00:36 in what they say is a protest
00:38 against Israel's military campaign in Gaza.
00:40 Of course, there are alternative strategies
00:44 for transporting goods around the world.
00:47 For example, shippers with New York-bound goods
00:50 from the Chinese port of Shanghai can dock in Los Angeles
00:53 and truck their wares across the United States
00:55 instead of waiting to get through the Panama Canal.
00:58 And cargo ships plying the Europe-Asia route
01:01 through the Suez Canal
01:02 can instead take the long way around Africa.
01:05 Those alternatives are often slower,
01:08 adding up to 15 days on some Europe-Asia routes,
01:11 and more expensive for the shipping companies.
01:14 But the bigger long-term cost
01:16 comes in the form of increased
01:17 planet-warming carbon emissions.
01:19 The Sustainable Transport Advocacy Organization
01:24 for Transport and Environment
01:26 calculated the extra emissions produced by a cargo ship
01:29 currently taking the long route
01:30 from the European port of Rotterdam to China.
01:33 The alternative journey resulted in an increase
01:36 of 2,519 metric tons of CO2,
01:40 which is the equivalent of burning
01:42 almost 14 railcars' worth of coal.
01:45 Considering that, on average,
01:47 68 ships transit the Suez Canal per day,
01:50 and that approximately 95% of the traffic
01:53 is currently being rerouted,
01:54 that could come to an extra 162,727 tons of emissions
01:59 for every day that the conflict continues.
02:04 Nonetheless, the weeks-long diversion around Africa
02:07 for a couple of hundred boats
02:08 is likely to have a marginal climate impact
02:11 compared to other major sources of emissions.
02:14 But still, every ton of planet-warming gases counts.
02:17 Unlike the Suez Canal,
02:21 which links two bodies of water at similar elevations,
02:24 transit through the Panama Canal
02:25 relies on a series of ascending locks
02:27 that use water drawn from a nearby lake.
02:30 But several seasons of little to no rainfall
02:33 have lowered the water levels,
02:35 and as a result, boats passing through the canal
02:37 have had to reduce their cargo loads by 40%
02:40 in order to reduce draft.
02:43 That translates into diversions, delays,
02:46 and additional carbon emissions,
02:47 especially if shippers turn instead
02:49 to diesel-powered trains and trucks
02:51 to transport goods overland.
02:54 And the amount of emissions from the shipping industry
02:56 depend on another important factor, speed.
03:00 Shipping companies avoid traveling at full throttle
03:03 to conserve fuel costs,
03:05 but if global demand for goods increases,
03:07 so too will transportation fees,
03:09 and cargo ships will be more likely to lay on the gas,
03:12 increasing emissions exponentially.
03:14 Conversely, if ships slowed down,
03:18 they'd produce significantly fewer greenhouse gases.
03:22 According to Transport and Environment,
03:24 if shipping companies reduce their speed by 10%,
03:27 total emissions for the global shipping sector
03:29 would be reduced by 30%.
03:31 That's a significant improvement
03:33 for an industry responsible for 2% of global emissions.
03:36 If anything, the bottlenecks in the two canals
03:40 prove that the industry is resilient.
03:43 Shipping fees have gone up,
03:45 but economies of scale mean that prices
03:47 on the transported goods themselves have not,
03:50 so a longer shipping journey
03:51 may not mean much for end consumers.
03:54 Still, once the Suez Canal opens up again,
03:57 ships could slow down to be more fuel-efficient,
04:00 with a much better impact on emissions and the climate.
04:03 (upbeat music)
04:05 (upbeat music)
04:08 (upbeat music)
04:11 [BLANK_AUDIO]