Everyone knows by now that driving cars and flying around in planes is bad. Some of us even make attempts to curb ourdriving and flying.
But shipping conglomorate Maersk emits as much CO2 as the entire nation of Denmark. So, how much will your valiant attempts to scale down your footprint really do, if industry-as-usual continues?
We can embark on our personal efforts to move around less, and "buy local", but these efforts won’t be enough. The system of production and transportation of goods must be changed.
It might be a bigger problem than you think: shipping accounts for 870 million tons of CO2 each year: more than the UK or Canada. It accounts for around 4.5% of emissions. These emissions are going to double or triple by 2050 if left unaddressed.
Who’s addressing this? Nobody. The Kyoto Protocol gave the responsibility to the International Maritime Organization back in 1997. They haven’t done anything. It’s unclear whether any regulation will be introduced in Copenhagen.
We want to draw attention to this problem by closing down the harbor on 13 December.