Micronesian Center for Sustainable Transport (MCST) Blog

Atina Schutz is a law student at the University of the South Pacific who has been closely following the IMO negotiations  The shipping industry accounts for 3% of all CO2 emissions, and is on track to grow as high as between 50% and 250% in 2050. At the International Maritime Organization (IMO), discussions on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from ships are ongoing. While progress is slowly being made, the main thing people in the Pacific, and everywhere, should be watching is equity in the progress of GHG reduction debates.  In the global market, the Pacific is at a disadvantage. Our small economies, with distantly spread islands, are very far from the global market, which is heavily concentrated in the Global North. When it is time to decarbonize, that disadvantage will be exacerbated. As decarbonization is a highly costly and technical process, the cost will fall on governments already struggling to provide other equally important services to their citizens. ...

On Sunday, The Guardian article from Casten Ned Nemra, Marshall Islands Minister of Foreign Affairs , marks a trend of increasing attention from global media on the central role shipping emissions play in decarbonizing our global economy.   RMI was joined by Kiribati and the Solomon Islands in calling for full decarbonisation by 2050 in their recent IMO submission, recognizing the IPCC AR6 report indicating sea level rise will continue for decades ahead, even if the 1.5 degrees  trajectory is met by 2030.  Recognition of the urgent action required has been widespread, but the issue of loss and damages to Pacific Island Countries – some of the most vulnerable and least culpable for our current global trajectory – is not being acknowledged with the same consensus. The earlier joint submission by RMI with Solomon Islands for a GHG levy starting at US$100 has been met with resistance from various national representatives and shipping industry stakeholders in the IMO.  U...

Peter Nuttall Micronesia Centre for Sustainable Transport This article was written a year before appearing on this blogsite. As we begin a new decade, the Sun is asking what 2020 heralds for Fiji’s shipping future? Shipping, especially our domestic sector, is facing major challenges. We are a maritime nation. Our fleet of commercial vessels - from outboard-driven village fibers, barges, landing craft, tourist vessels, to large passenger/cargo ferries - is the very lifeline connecting our more than 300 islands. Like other Pacific Islands states, we have long shipping routes, sometimes hundreds of nautical miles, to service relatively small communities. It has always been a relatively high-risk business and margins, especially for our remote and most vulnerable communities, are thin. High fuel prices, an often-aged fleet and a large scattered infrastructural footprint, have always presented major challenges to both government and private sector operators alike. There are major systemic u...

Dr. Peter Nuttall  Micronesian Centre for Sustainable Transport.     This article was published exactly one year ago since appearing on this blogsite. By the time this goes to print, Severe Tropical Cyclone Harold is hopefully situated well to the south of Fiji. But TC Harold has already taken a toll in human life and structural damage in the Solomon Islands and, as I write, is poised to strengthen to Category 5 as it slams into Vanuatu. The heartbreaking news of the maritime disaster that has happened in the Solomon’s this week, with at least two vessels washed ashore and some 28 passengers washed off an inter-island ferry (MV Taimareho), overcrowded with 738 villagers fleeing COVID19 is a stark reminder of how vulnerable our aged and over-stretched domestic shipping services are in the Pacific. It also highlights how quickly stretched our national capacity is when countries are suddenly faced with not one, but two simultaneous national disasters. Like most countrie...

  Peter Nuttall             Micronesian Center for Sustainable Transport,     This article was published in the Fiji Sun a year ago since appearing on this blogsite. Drua Fleet of Ovalau 1855  Canoe Shed Tonga I Vola Siga Vou – (credit Island Encounters Photography) These truly are unprecedented times. Fiji, and its Pacific neighbours, are faced with two national disasters - the aftermath of Severe Tropical Cyclone Harold and the Covid19 pandemic. But a third, and possibly greatest threat, now looms large - a global economic depression likely of a magnitude unseen since the Great Depression. The effects of this will rock our vulnerable Pacific economies for the foreseeable future. One of the few silver linings from the Great Depression was the renaissance in traditional canoe building that happened in maritime Fiji and especially the Lau group. The great drua fleets that were commonplace through central Oceania had largely been dismantl...

Peter Nuttall Micronesia Centre for Sustainable Transport This article was written in February 2020, a year ago since appearing on this blogsite The critical importance of sea transport to Pacific countries and its interrelationship to all levels of socio-economic development are widely recognised and documented. The sector currently has a range of challenges including the prevalence of old, inefficient and undermaintained vessels, and a lack of supporting modern infrastructure including ports, facilities for bunkering, ship building, maintenance, and repair. Existing vessels service and underpin micro-economies at the end of long and narrow operating routes, with the consequence that sea transport within and between Pacific countries is the most expensive per unit distance and per capita in the world. Transportation and mobility is a cross-cutting issue central to the sustainable development of Pacific Island countries. In the Pacific we do not have fast rail, concrete freeways and bi...