The Pacific Ocean and Pacific Islands are in trouble, and not just from the recent spate of storms.
Because of climate change, oceans are facing increasing acidification, which is devastating to marine life, and islands face the threat of disappearing due to sea level rise.
But there is always hope.
The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Global Ocean Legacy project has played a key role in urging governments to protect almost one million square miles of ocean from ecosystem threats. Their latest undertaking? Urging President Obama to expand and protect the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument.
The planned expansion of the national monument, announced in June, would create an area larger than Alaska, increasing protection of U.S. waters in the Pacific by up to 671,000 square miles. Extending the boundaries would result in the world’s most extensive network of marine protected areas, which, as research shows, is essential to increasing oceans species’ diversity and resilience to climate change.
While the national monument expansion is still under consideration by the Obama administration, a group of Pacific Islanders called the Pacific Climate Warriors are doing their part to protect their home from the effects of climate changes, telling the world: "We are not drowning. We are fighting.”
The Pacific Climate Warriors have been building traditional canoes in preparation for an epic journey to Australia this October, where they will stand up to those blocking climate action and to the fossil fuel industry that is destroying their homelands.
350 Pacific, active in 15 of the Pacific Island Nations, launched a video explaining the mission of the campaign:
The Pacific Warriors will travel Australia and share their story of struggle, confident that Australians will stand up and say “we will not let our neighbors drown.”
As the group states:
For 20 years we’ve asked world leaders to take action to stop polluting the atmosphere. Unless we act now, many of our Pacific Islands face losing everything to sea level rise. We cannot wait any longer.
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"Now that we are spending more time at home, we are noticing the large number of delivery vans and lorries driving through cities," said Netherlands environment minister Stientje van Veldhoven, announcing plans to ban all but zero-emission deliveries in 14 cities.
"The agreements we are setting down will ensure that it will be a matter of course that within a few years, supermarket shelves will be stocked, waste will be collected, and packages will arrive on time, yet without any exhaust fumes and CO2 emissions," she added.
She expects 30 cities to announce zero emission urban logistics by this summer. City councils must give four years' notice before imposing bans as part of government plans for emission-free road traffic by 2050. The city bans aim to save 1 megaton of CO2 each year by 2030.
Help to Change
To encourage transport organizations to go carbon-free, the government is offering grants of more than US$5,900 to help businesses buy or lease electric vehicles. There will be additional measures to help small businesses make the change.
The Netherlands claims it is the first country in the world to give its cities the freedom to implement zero-emission zones. Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht already have "milieuzones" where some types of vehicles are banned.
Tilburg, one of the first wave of cities imposing the Dutch ban, will not allow fossil-fuelled vehicles on streets within its outer ring road and plans to roll out a network of city-wide electric vehicle charging stations before the ban comes into effect in 2025.
"Such initiatives are imperative to improve air quality. The transport of the future must be emission-free, sustainable, and clean," said Tilburg city alderman Oscar Dusschooten.
Europe Takes Action
Research by Renault shows that many other European cities are heading in the same direction as the Netherlands, starting with Low Emission Zones of which Germany's "Umweltzone" were pioneers. More than 100 communes in Italy have introduced "Zonas a traffico limitato."
Madrid's "zona de baja emisión" bans diesel vehicles built before 2006 and petrol vehicles from before 2000 from central areas of the city. Barcelona has similar restrictions and the law will require all towns of more than 50,000 inhabitants to follow suit.
Perhaps the most stringent restrictions apply in London's Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), which charges trucks and large vehicles up to US$137 a day to enter the central area if they do not comply with Euro 6 emissions standards. From October, the ULEZ is being expanded.
Cities are responsible for around 75% of CO2 emissions from global final energy use, according to the green thinktank REN21 - and much of these come from transport. Globally, transport accounts for 24% of world CO2 emissions.
The Rise of Online Shopping
Part of the reason for traffic in urban areas is the increase in delivery vehicles, as online shopping continues to grow. Retailer ecommerce sales are expected to pass $5billion in 2022, according to eMarketer.
The World Economic Forum's report The Future of the Last-Mile Ecosystem, published in January 2020, estimates that e-commerce will increase the number of delivery vehicles on the roads of the world's 100 largest cities by 36% by 2030.
If all those vehicles burn fossil fuels, the report says emissions will increase by 32%. But switching to all-electric delivery vehicles would cut emissions by 30% from current levels as well as reducing costs by 25%, the report says.
Other solutions explored in the report include introducing goods trams to handle deliveries alongside their passenger-carrying counterparts and increased use of parcel lockers to reduce the number of doorstep deliveries.
Reposted with permission from the World Economic Forum.