Today, Pacific Environment and environmental allies urge the head of the UN’s Shipping Agency to proceed rapidly to decarbonize international shipping. Critical UN environmental meetings have been rightfully postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic — environmental groups support these actions, but the inability to convene in person must not be used as a pretext to … Read more
In February, our Arctic team returned to London to push for a ban on heavy fuel oil. Pacific Environment and Indigenous and international allies urged the United Nations to listen to science and respect the wishes of local communities to ban this dirtiest of all fossil fuels from the Arctic. The ban will directly protect … Read more
London, Friday February 21, 2020: NGOs and Indigenous groups today cautiously acknowledged progress by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and its Member States in agreeing on a draft regulation on heavy fuel oil (HFO) use and carriage in the Arctic, but denounced the inclusion of loopholes in the text that mean the ban will not come … Read more
Over 46,000 people want Carnival Corporation’s dirty cruise ships out of Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park. We made sure the National Park Service got that message. Two years ago, a Carnival-owned Holland America cruise ship illegally dumped 22,000 gallons of wastewater in Glacier Bay National Park. At the time, they were fined $250—a fraction of … Read more
London, January 27, 2020 – Responding to the discovery that some of the new blended low sulphur shipping fuels developed and marketed by oil companies to comply with IMO 2020 air pollution standards will actually lead to a surge in the emissions of a Super Pollutant known as Black Carbon, the Clean Arctic Alliance is … Read more
With the support of activists like you, we are building people power around the Pacific Rim to fight climate change, defend the oceans, promote open and inclusive societies, and ensure a just transition to a clean energy future for all. Here are five accomplishments I’m especially proud of this year. They would not have been … Read more
Earlier this year, Mellisa Maktuayaq Johnson told a room full of international shipping experts in London that “the sea and the land are our store.” Most people in the audience are used to shopping at supermarkets like Safeway or Costco, so it took a moment before they grasped the implications of what they were hearing. … Read more
Yu Jianfeng recently started fighting “white pollution,” as people in China call plastic pollution based on the ubiquity of discarded white plastic bags. “Plastic is a really big problem for rivers,” he said. “It is eaten by fish and other wildlife and its toxic chemicals can move up the food chain. It affects individual species, … Read more
When recently a pod of 100 dolphins swam through Cu Lao Cham Marine Protected Area (MPA) off the coast of Central Vietnam, it got residents and park officials talking. It had been a long time since people spotted marine mammals in the coastal waters. Development and fishing had driven them away. “Maybe a big typhoon … Read more
Earlier this month, I was in a rural area of China, up in a mountain village whose residents—mostly small-plot farmers and proprietors of small tourist hostels—had agreed to participate in a project to try to reduce the plastic waste of the village. The villagers quickly learned that almost all their waste was plastic waste from … Read more
Seeds planted over the past decade by communities in Vietnam have now borne fruit: the nation’s leadership has announced the intent to do something about the country’s plastic trash problem. On June 9, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc launched a campaign to fight plastic pollution, pledging to ban single-use plastic nationwide by 2025. With … Read more
From the Arctic to Asia Pacific, this year we are celebrating marine life. Check out our new video to see how much our lives depend on healthy oceans. Pacific Environment and our local partners protect critical habitat for marine species in the Arctic and Pacific oceans. We help establish protective zones that allow threatened wildlife … Read more
London, February 22, 2019 – As a meeting of the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Sub-Committee on Pollution Prevention and Response (PPR 6) closes today in London, the Clean Arctic Alliance welcomed progress but calls on Arctic Nations Russia and Canada to step-up to their responsibilities by adding their support for a ban on heavy fuel oil (HFO) … Read more
In this cold weather season, here’s a heartwarming story from the Russian Far East. And while I’m not usually one for watching cat videos on YouTube, this story comes with the cutest footage I’ve ever seen of tiger cubs. Check it out! For the first time ever, four Siberian tiger cubs were caught on camera in … Read more
We live in remarkable, stressful times. The last five years have been recorded as the five hottest on record, worldwide. Reports are coming in that an increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius may come even sooner than we thought. Worrying news is reaching us from the Arctic and Antarctic ice caps, and from the Himalayas, about … Read more
Here are seven accomplishments I’m especially proud of this year. They would not have been possible without your generosity and passion. We won strong international protections for Arctic and Alaskan communities and wildlife. New rules now require ships to avoid fragile marine ecosystems around three islands in the Bering Sea (Nunivak Island, St. Lawrence Island, and King Island)—reducing the … Read more
Now, more than ever, we depend on the courage and dedicated activism of grassroots activists like you. As our own government is denying climate change and allowing polluters to pump more toxins into our water, our food, and our bodies, it’s up to you and me and others like us to fight for our future. … Read more
Many cultures worship the lone hero who overcomes terrible obstacles in the fight for justice. True leadership, however, empowers others to become strong leaders alongside oneself. For years, Liu Sheng fought hard to protect the Xiang River in his hometown in Hunan Province from toxic pollution. He and his team at Green Hunan, an environmental … Read more
Chances are that the clothes you’re wearing, the device you’re reading this on, and much of what you have in your home has spent some time on a ship. In fact, more than 80% of all goods traded globally are carried by ship. Product components are bouncing back and forth across oceans as they are … Read more
There are 8 billion tons of plastic on the planet. And once it’s made—it never goes away. So, where does it go? In Vietnam, it often ends up in the ocean. Dinh Thi Hang was born and raised in iconic Ha Long Bay, a city that is changing rapidly. New businesses, convention centers, restaurants, and … Read more