The shipping industry has “captured” UN talks on a climate target for the sector, using its clout to delay and weaken emissions curbs.

That is the conclusion of a report by business lobbying watchdog Influence Map about the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The study was released to coincide with a meeting of an IMO working group on greenhouse gases on Monday.

Based on analysis of delegate lists, meeting submissions and outcomes, it finds business interests exert an uncommon degree of influence over decisions. This, campaigners warn, jeopardises the international climate goals adopted in Paris.

Representatives from business

“The research proves almost conclusively that the shipping industry has been lobbying aggressively in the UN against climate change regulations,” Ben Youriev, an author of the report, told Climate Home. “They have completely captured policymaking bodies at the IMO.”

Perhaps the most striking discovery is the extent to which business interests infiltrate national delegations. Researchers found 31 out of 100 member states at the last IMO environmental committee meeting brought representatives from business.

Cosco and Vale are regular advisers to China and Brazil respectively, with the opportunity to advance their agenda in multiple subcommittees.

“The IMO appears the only UN agency to allow such extensive corporate representation in the policy making process,” the report said.

Very active

Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the IMO said: “Nominating people to its delegation is an internal domestic matter for each member state. The IMO Secretariat is not involved in those decisions.”

Special report: The tax-free shipping company that took control of a country’s UN mission

Five national delegations were led by commercial flag registries, not government officials. As Climate Home has previously reported, the Marshall Islands former foreign minister Tony de Brum faced resistance from registry figures when he sought to claim his seat at the forum.

While the low-lying Pacific island state is known for advocating ambitious climate action, its ship registry – the second largest in the world – is based in Virginia, US and has little accountability to the country’s elected leaders.

Registry president Bill Gallagher said in an interview with Maritime Reporterin July: “We used to send a taxi over to IMO and now we send a bus. And that’s true. I mean, we really spend a lot of money as a flag state, sending the right people to IMO.

“Our regulatory guys say, ‘If you’re not in the working groups, you’re not impacting what happened’. Where you really make a difference is at the working groups. So we’re not only just sending a couple guys to sit in a chair; we actually are very active in the working groups.”

Emerging economies

On top of these discreet channels of influence, the industry is visibly represented through trade associations like the International Chamber of Shipping, which have official observer status. Representing 80% of the world’s merchant fleet, the ICS brought a bigger team to the last environmental committee meeting than 85% of national delegations.

As an example of its sway, Influence Map points to last October’s environment meeting, when 13 countries explicitly endorsed the ICS proposal. In the end, member states adopted a timetable for setting climate targets very similar to that suggested by industry, deferring implementation of greenhouse gas curbs to 2023 at the earliest.

Shipping Watch reports that industry voices are also expected to prevail at this week’s meeting, occupying a middle ground between ambitious European states and more conservative emerging economies.

ICS, along with Bimco, Intertanko and Intercargo, are proposing an “aspirational” target to cap the sector’s emissions at 2008 levels (the pre-financial crash peak) and halve its carbon intensity by 2050. They oppose absolute emissions cuts, on the basis this could constrain growth in world trade.

Climate advocates say that is not nearly enough to align with the Paris Agreement goal to hold global warming “well below 2C”.

Ambitious action 

Shipping has a carbon footprint roughly the size of Germany. Without intervention, the IMO’s own research predicts that to grow 50-250% by 2050.

The latest available data, published by the International Council on Clean Transportation last week, showed emissions increasing 2.4% between 2013 and 2015.

Fuel efficiency improved for many ship classes over the period, but the gains were outweighed by increased demand.

Christiana Figueres, former UN climate chief and founder of Mission 2020, urged the sector to up its game. “The Paris Agreement committed the world to ambitious action on climate change, yet the shipping industry is not up to speed,” she said in a statement.

“It’s time to raise the anchor and seize the opportunity between now and 2020 to align with other industries and chart the course to well below 2C pathway”.

Report: Gas tanker crosses thawing Arctic without icebreaker for first time

Information transparency

Influence Map director Dylan Tanner told Climate Home he hoped the report would inspire progressive businesses and investors to intervene.

“We need the silent majority of companies to step up and address the difficult issues,” he said. “Investors hate the lack of transparency and they hate not having risks disclosed to them… that is a big target audience, for them to address this not just with ship owners but the shipping value chain as a whole.”

The report praised AP Moller-Maersk as one of the only shipping companies to have a transparent – and relatively ambitious – position on climate policy. Some Scandinavian shipowners associations also support stronger action.

Johannah Christensen of Global Maritime Forum, a Copenhagen-based body promoting collaboration on disruptive trends for the industry, said: “A low-carbon future is achievable if private and public stakeholders work together and must necessarily be based on facts and improved information transparency.”

Investors in the shipping sector may be failing in their fiduciary duties if they ignore “such damning evidence” of lobbying to obstruct climate action, said Alice Garton of environmental law firm Client Earth.

“These findings reveal an industry so resistant to climate progress that it has negotiated a sector-wide free pass on emissions. But no business is exempt from the effects of climate change and it’s time for these firms to be held to account.”

This Author

Megan Darby is deputy editor at Climate Home, where this article first appeared. She previously wrote about UK energy and water industries for leading sector publication Utility Week. She holds a Mathematics degree from Newcastle University. She tweets at @climatemegan.

The Saraya echo stay in Goa’s Bardez region in South India has grown widely in reputation since it opened its doors in December 2014.

Described by many as a “pocket of heaven”, it is a place where tourists and locals are able to escape the nearby busy beaches, either to stay overnight or just to grab something to eat.

Today’s generation

But now, Punjab-born owner, Deeksha Thind, is planning how best to inspire and involve more people in eco-living. This includes opening a new education centre.

“I think the future is education,” begins Deeksha, who is an architect by trade. “I find a lot of young people in today’s generation are all on sabbaticals because they don’t know what they want but they definitely know what they don’t want.

“So when I was thinking about what to do with the rest of the land, I thought I needed to look beyond the ecostay here.”

Deeksha’s idea for the land, which nears 2-acres in size, centres around an educational space, where people who are looking to change their careers, could stay whilst they are deciding what career they want to move in to.

This might include taking part in a free open university course whilst they are staying at Saraya – something which would be particularly beneficial for students who are unable to pay for pricey accommodation or additional studies.

Built from scratch

“People who can afford to pay [to lodge] would pay and those who couldn’t would volunteer and we would have a centre where people could live in a sustainable way, whilst contributing to the space,” she says.

The site would sit opposite the existing Saraya ecostay, which was also a creation of Deeksha’s.

“Nature and sustainability have been a part of my inner-self for some time but I didn’t realise they were there until I started building Saraya. And when I started building it, it just sort of flowed out of me very naturally.”

It wasn’t long before people started to get involved in the project, resulting in a place which marries together art, food and eco-living.

Built from scratch, Saraya’s ecostay is made from natural materials, with mud huts and treehouses forming the two different types of accommodation available on the site.

Creating treehouses

With help from YouTube videos and local knowledge, Deeksha and her team built the mud huts with recycled and natural materials.

“The idea was that we’d use glass bottles to honeycomb the walls to make them much stronger and reinforce them,” Deeksha says, explaining how the mud huts were formed.

“This then formed part of a recycling project, where glass bottles could be reused. I also loved the way the light shone through the bottles, adding to the design of the huts.”

Volunteers from the community helped with some of the building, including local homeschooled children, who were able to learn about the build process whilst joining in.

And rather than cutting down the existing trees on the land to make space for more huts, Deeksha decided to work around them by creating treehouses.

Vegetarian food

“Initially, we used the trees to do the building but later I disconnected them from the build, whilst letting them remain in the structure,” she says.

As a result, the material costs were the smallest expense on the project, which meant the money saved could be used to pay higher rates to underprivileged Indian builders employed on the scheme.

As Deeksha says, “The workers on this project come from different parts of India, where there might be droughts or floods so they can’t sustain themselves on their own land.

“So they have gone looking for work in other parts of India where they can use their skills and send money back to their family members who are left behind.”

Saraya also has an art gallery and a café, the latter of which serves fresh vegetarian food on a daily basis.

Inspiring a community

They grow as much of their own food as they can in the farm surrounding the ecostay, although seasonal monsoons have so far restricted the team from serving up ‘farm-to-table’ food only. However, the team is looking at how it can realistically harvest crops throughout the year.

Deeksha is also researching a variety of other sustainable measures to introduce into Saraya, including wind and hydropower as potential renewable energy sources to use on the site.

The importance of community and family is a clear driver for Deeksha, who explains how her four children have also played a key role in building Saraya. “We’re growing this venture with the entire family, who all have the same philosophy of living.”

It is that philosophy of living that is going a long way to inspiring others to turn to an eco-lifestyle.

As Deeksha says, “People get so inspired when they visit Saraya and they see that you can do something like this: live sustainably and carry out a zero-waste lifestyle. So we are inspiring a community here.”

This Author

Robyn Wilson is a freelance journalist currently writing and travelling across Asia. She is a former news editor at Construction News. She blogs at Weird Fishes and tweets at @RobynFWilson.

The shipping industry has “captured” UN talks on a climate target for the sector, using its clout to delay and weaken emissions curbs.

That is the conclusion of a report by business lobbying watchdog Influence Map about the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The study was released to coincide with a meeting of an IMO working group on greenhouse gases on Monday.

Based on analysis of delegate lists, meeting submissions and outcomes, it finds business interests exert an uncommon degree of influence over decisions. This, campaigners warn, jeopardises the international climate goals adopted in Paris.

Representatives from business

“The research proves almost conclusively that the shipping industry has been lobbying aggressively in the UN against climate change regulations,” Ben Youriev, an author of the report, told Climate Home. “They have completely captured policymaking bodies at the IMO.”

Perhaps the most striking discovery is the extent to which business interests infiltrate national delegations. Researchers found 31 out of 100 member states at the last IMO environmental committee meeting brought representatives from business.

Cosco and Vale are regular advisers to China and Brazil respectively, with the opportunity to advance their agenda in multiple subcommittees.

“The IMO appears the only UN agency to allow such extensive corporate representation in the policy making process,” the report said.

Very active

Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the IMO said: “Nominating people to its delegation is an internal domestic matter for each member state. The IMO Secretariat is not involved in those decisions.”

Special report: The tax-free shipping company that took control of a country’s UN mission

Five national delegations were led by commercial flag registries, not government officials. As Climate Home has previously reported, the Marshall Islands former foreign minister Tony de Brum faced resistance from registry figures when he sought to claim his seat at the forum.

While the low-lying Pacific island state is known for advocating ambitious climate action, its ship registry – the second largest in the world – is based in Virginia, US and has little accountability to the country’s elected leaders.

Registry president Bill Gallagher said in an interview with Maritime Reporterin July: “We used to send a taxi over to IMO and now we send a bus. And that’s true. I mean, we really spend a lot of money as a flag state, sending the right people to IMO.

“Our regulatory guys say, ‘If you’re not in the working groups, you’re not impacting what happened’. Where you really make a difference is at the working groups. So we’re not only just sending a couple guys to sit in a chair; we actually are very active in the working groups.”

Emerging economies

On top of these discreet channels of influence, the industry is visibly represented through trade associations like the International Chamber of Shipping, which have official observer status. Representing 80% of the world’s merchant fleet, the ICS brought a bigger team to the last environmental committee meeting than 85% of national delegations.

As an example of its sway, Influence Map points to last October’s environment meeting, when 13 countries explicitly endorsed the ICS proposal. In the end, member states adopted a timetable for setting climate targets very similar to that suggested by industry, deferring implementation of greenhouse gas curbs to 2023 at the earliest.

Shipping Watch reports that industry voices are also expected to prevail at this week’s meeting, occupying a middle ground between ambitious European states and more conservative emerging economies.

ICS, along with Bimco, Intertanko and Intercargo, are proposing an “aspirational” target to cap the sector’s emissions at 2008 levels (the pre-financial crash peak) and halve its carbon intensity by 2050. They oppose absolute emissions cuts, on the basis this could constrain growth in world trade.

Climate advocates say that is not nearly enough to align with the Paris Agreement goal to hold global warming “well below 2C”.

Ambitious action 

Shipping has a carbon footprint roughly the size of Germany. Without intervention, the IMO’s own research predicts that to grow 50-250% by 2050.

The latest available data, published by the International Council on Clean Transportation last week, showed emissions increasing 2.4% between 2013 and 2015.

Fuel efficiency improved for many ship classes over the period, but the gains were outweighed by increased demand.

Christiana Figueres, former UN climate chief and founder of Mission 2020, urged the sector to up its game. “The Paris Agreement committed the world to ambitious action on climate change, yet the shipping industry is not up to speed,” she said in a statement.

“It’s time to raise the anchor and seize the opportunity between now and 2020 to align with other industries and chart the course to well below 2C pathway”.

Report: Gas tanker crosses thawing Arctic without icebreaker for first time

Information transparency

Influence Map director Dylan Tanner told Climate Home he hoped the report would inspire progressive businesses and investors to intervene.

“We need the silent majority of companies to step up and address the difficult issues,” he said. “Investors hate the lack of transparency and they hate not having risks disclosed to them… that is a big target audience, for them to address this not just with ship owners but the shipping value chain as a whole.”

The report praised AP Moller-Maersk as one of the only shipping companies to have a transparent – and relatively ambitious – position on climate policy. Some Scandinavian shipowners associations also support stronger action.

Johannah Christensen of Global Maritime Forum, a Copenhagen-based body promoting collaboration on disruptive trends for the industry, said: “A low-carbon future is achievable if private and public stakeholders work together and must necessarily be based on facts and improved information transparency.”

Investors in the shipping sector may be failing in their fiduciary duties if they ignore “such damning evidence” of lobbying to obstruct climate action, said Alice Garton of environmental law firm Client Earth.

“These findings reveal an industry so resistant to climate progress that it has negotiated a sector-wide free pass on emissions. But no business is exempt from the effects of climate change and it’s time for these firms to be held to account.”

This Author

Megan Darby is deputy editor at Climate Home, where this article first appeared. She previously wrote about UK energy and water industries for leading sector publication Utility Week. She holds a Mathematics degree from Newcastle University. She tweets at @climatemegan.

The Saraya echo stay in Goa’s Bardez region in South India has grown widely in reputation since it opened its doors in December 2014.

Described by many as a “pocket of heaven”, it is a place where tourists and locals are able to escape the nearby busy beaches, either to stay overnight or just to grab something to eat.

Today’s generation

But now, Punjab-born owner, Deeksha Thind, is planning how best to inspire and involve more people in eco-living. This includes opening a new education centre.

“I think the future is education,” begins Deeksha, who is an architect by trade. “I find a lot of young people in today’s generation are all on sabbaticals because they don’t know what they want but they definitely know what they don’t want.

“So when I was thinking about what to do with the rest of the land, I thought I needed to look beyond the ecostay here.”

Deeksha’s idea for the land, which nears 2-acres in size, centres around an educational space, where people who are looking to change their careers, could stay whilst they are deciding what career they want to move in to.

This might include taking part in a free open university course whilst they are staying at Saraya – something which would be particularly beneficial for students who are unable to pay for pricey accommodation or additional studies.

Built from scratch

“People who can afford to pay [to lodge] would pay and those who couldn’t would volunteer and we would have a centre where people could live in a sustainable way, whilst contributing to the space,” she says.

The site would sit opposite the existing Saraya ecostay, which was also a creation of Deeksha’s.

“Nature and sustainability have been a part of my inner-self for some time but I didn’t realise they were there until I started building Saraya. And when I started building it, it just sort of flowed out of me very naturally.”

It wasn’t long before people started to get involved in the project, resulting in a place which marries together art, food and eco-living.

Built from scratch, Saraya’s ecostay is made from natural materials, with mud huts and treehouses forming the two different types of accommodation available on the site.

Creating treehouses

With help from YouTube videos and local knowledge, Deeksha and her team built the mud huts with recycled and natural materials.

“The idea was that we’d use glass bottles to honeycomb the walls to make them much stronger and reinforce them,” Deeksha says, explaining how the mud huts were formed.

“This then formed part of a recycling project, where glass bottles could be reused. I also loved the way the light shone through the bottles, adding to the design of the huts.”

Volunteers from the community helped with some of the building, including local homeschooled children, who were able to learn about the build process whilst joining in.

And rather than cutting down the existing trees on the land to make space for more huts, Deeksha decided to work around them by creating treehouses.

Vegetarian food

“Initially, we used the trees to do the building but later I disconnected them from the build, whilst letting them remain in the structure,” she says.

As a result, the material costs were the smallest expense on the project, which meant the money saved could be used to pay higher rates to underprivileged Indian builders employed on the scheme.

As Deeksha says, “The workers on this project come from different parts of India, where there might be droughts or floods so they can’t sustain themselves on their own land.

“So they have gone looking for work in other parts of India where they can use their skills and send money back to their family members who are left behind.”

Saraya also has an art gallery and a café, the latter of which serves fresh vegetarian food on a daily basis.

Inspiring a community

They grow as much of their own food as they can in the farm surrounding the ecostay, although seasonal monsoons have so far restricted the team from serving up ‘farm-to-table’ food only. However, the team is looking at how it can realistically harvest crops throughout the year.

Deeksha is also researching a variety of other sustainable measures to introduce into Saraya, including wind and hydropower as potential renewable energy sources to use on the site.

The importance of community and family is a clear driver for Deeksha, who explains how her four children have also played a key role in building Saraya. “We’re growing this venture with the entire family, who all have the same philosophy of living.”

It is that philosophy of living that is going a long way to inspiring others to turn to an eco-lifestyle.

As Deeksha says, “People get so inspired when they visit Saraya and they see that you can do something like this: live sustainably and carry out a zero-waste lifestyle. So we are inspiring a community here.”

This Author

Robyn Wilson is a freelance journalist currently writing and travelling across Asia. She is a former news editor at Construction News. She blogs at Weird Fishes and tweets at @RobynFWilson.

The shipping industry has “captured” UN talks on a climate target for the sector, using its clout to delay and weaken emissions curbs.

That is the conclusion of a report by business lobbying watchdog Influence Map about the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The study was released to coincide with a meeting of an IMO working group on greenhouse gases on Monday.

Based on analysis of delegate lists, meeting submissions and outcomes, it finds business interests exert an uncommon degree of influence over decisions. This, campaigners warn, jeopardises the international climate goals adopted in Paris.

Representatives from business

“The research proves almost conclusively that the shipping industry has been lobbying aggressively in the UN against climate change regulations,” Ben Youriev, an author of the report, told Climate Home. “They have completely captured policymaking bodies at the IMO.”

Perhaps the most striking discovery is the extent to which business interests infiltrate national delegations. Researchers found 31 out of 100 member states at the last IMO environmental committee meeting brought representatives from business.

Cosco and Vale are regular advisers to China and Brazil respectively, with the opportunity to advance their agenda in multiple subcommittees.

“The IMO appears the only UN agency to allow such extensive corporate representation in the policy making process,” the report said.

Very active

Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the IMO said: “Nominating people to its delegation is an internal domestic matter for each member state. The IMO Secretariat is not involved in those decisions.”

Special report: The tax-free shipping company that took control of a country’s UN mission

Five national delegations were led by commercial flag registries, not government officials. As Climate Home has previously reported, the Marshall Islands former foreign minister Tony de Brum faced resistance from registry figures when he sought to claim his seat at the forum.

While the low-lying Pacific island state is known for advocating ambitious climate action, its ship registry – the second largest in the world – is based in Virginia, US and has little accountability to the country’s elected leaders.

Registry president Bill Gallagher said in an interview with Maritime Reporterin July: “We used to send a taxi over to IMO and now we send a bus. And that’s true. I mean, we really spend a lot of money as a flag state, sending the right people to IMO.

“Our regulatory guys say, ‘If you’re not in the working groups, you’re not impacting what happened’. Where you really make a difference is at the working groups. So we’re not only just sending a couple guys to sit in a chair; we actually are very active in the working groups.”

Emerging economies

On top of these discreet channels of influence, the industry is visibly represented through trade associations like the International Chamber of Shipping, which have official observer status. Representing 80% of the world’s merchant fleet, the ICS brought a bigger team to the last environmental committee meeting than 85% of national delegations.

As an example of its sway, Influence Map points to last October’s environment meeting, when 13 countries explicitly endorsed the ICS proposal. In the end, member states adopted a timetable for setting climate targets very similar to that suggested by industry, deferring implementation of greenhouse gas curbs to 2023 at the earliest.

Shipping Watch reports that industry voices are also expected to prevail at this week’s meeting, occupying a middle ground between ambitious European states and more conservative emerging economies.

ICS, along with Bimco, Intertanko and Intercargo, are proposing an “aspirational” target to cap the sector’s emissions at 2008 levels (the pre-financial crash peak) and halve its carbon intensity by 2050. They oppose absolute emissions cuts, on the basis this could constrain growth in world trade.

Climate advocates say that is not nearly enough to align with the Paris Agreement goal to hold global warming “well below 2C”.

Ambitious action 

Shipping has a carbon footprint roughly the size of Germany. Without intervention, the IMO’s own research predicts that to grow 50-250% by 2050.

The latest available data, published by the International Council on Clean Transportation last week, showed emissions increasing 2.4% between 2013 and 2015.

Fuel efficiency improved for many ship classes over the period, but the gains were outweighed by increased demand.

Christiana Figueres, former UN climate chief and founder of Mission 2020, urged the sector to up its game. “The Paris Agreement committed the world to ambitious action on climate change, yet the shipping industry is not up to speed,” she said in a statement.

“It’s time to raise the anchor and seize the opportunity between now and 2020 to align with other industries and chart the course to well below 2C pathway”.

Report: Gas tanker crosses thawing Arctic without icebreaker for first time

Information transparency

Influence Map director Dylan Tanner told Climate Home he hoped the report would inspire progressive businesses and investors to intervene.

“We need the silent majority of companies to step up and address the difficult issues,” he said. “Investors hate the lack of transparency and they hate not having risks disclosed to them… that is a big target audience, for them to address this not just with ship owners but the shipping value chain as a whole.”

The report praised AP Moller-Maersk as one of the only shipping companies to have a transparent – and relatively ambitious – position on climate policy. Some Scandinavian shipowners associations also support stronger action.

Johannah Christensen of Global Maritime Forum, a Copenhagen-based body promoting collaboration on disruptive trends for the industry, said: “A low-carbon future is achievable if private and public stakeholders work together and must necessarily be based on facts and improved information transparency.”

Investors in the shipping sector may be failing in their fiduciary duties if they ignore “such damning evidence” of lobbying to obstruct climate action, said Alice Garton of environmental law firm Client Earth.

“These findings reveal an industry so resistant to climate progress that it has negotiated a sector-wide free pass on emissions. But no business is exempt from the effects of climate change and it’s time for these firms to be held to account.”

This Author

Megan Darby is deputy editor at Climate Home, where this article first appeared. She previously wrote about UK energy and water industries for leading sector publication Utility Week. She holds a Mathematics degree from Newcastle University. She tweets at @climatemegan.

The Saraya echo stay in Goa’s Bardez region in South India has grown widely in reputation since it opened its doors in December 2014.

Described by many as a “pocket of heaven”, it is a place where tourists and locals are able to escape the nearby busy beaches, either to stay overnight or just to grab something to eat.

Today’s generation

But now, Punjab-born owner, Deeksha Thind, is planning how best to inspire and involve more people in eco-living. This includes opening a new education centre.

“I think the future is education,” begins Deeksha, who is an architect by trade. “I find a lot of young people in today’s generation are all on sabbaticals because they don’t know what they want but they definitely know what they don’t want.

“So when I was thinking about what to do with the rest of the land, I thought I needed to look beyond the ecostay here.”

Deeksha’s idea for the land, which nears 2-acres in size, centres around an educational space, where people who are looking to change their careers, could stay whilst they are deciding what career they want to move in to.

This might include taking part in a free open university course whilst they are staying at Saraya – something which would be particularly beneficial for students who are unable to pay for pricey accommodation or additional studies.

Built from scratch

“People who can afford to pay [to lodge] would pay and those who couldn’t would volunteer and we would have a centre where people could live in a sustainable way, whilst contributing to the space,” she says.

The site would sit opposite the existing Saraya ecostay, which was also a creation of Deeksha’s.

“Nature and sustainability have been a part of my inner-self for some time but I didn’t realise they were there until I started building Saraya. And when I started building it, it just sort of flowed out of me very naturally.”

It wasn’t long before people started to get involved in the project, resulting in a place which marries together art, food and eco-living.

Built from scratch, Saraya’s ecostay is made from natural materials, with mud huts and treehouses forming the two different types of accommodation available on the site.

Creating treehouses

With help from YouTube videos and local knowledge, Deeksha and her team built the mud huts with recycled and natural materials.

“The idea was that we’d use glass bottles to honeycomb the walls to make them much stronger and reinforce them,” Deeksha says, explaining how the mud huts were formed.

“This then formed part of a recycling project, where glass bottles could be reused. I also loved the way the light shone through the bottles, adding to the design of the huts.”

Volunteers from the community helped with some of the building, including local homeschooled children, who were able to learn about the build process whilst joining in.

And rather than cutting down the existing trees on the land to make space for more huts, Deeksha decided to work around them by creating treehouses.

Vegetarian food

“Initially, we used the trees to do the building but later I disconnected them from the build, whilst letting them remain in the structure,” she says.

As a result, the material costs were the smallest expense on the project, which meant the money saved could be used to pay higher rates to underprivileged Indian builders employed on the scheme.

As Deeksha says, “The workers on this project come from different parts of India, where there might be droughts or floods so they can’t sustain themselves on their own land.

“So they have gone looking for work in other parts of India where they can use their skills and send money back to their family members who are left behind.”

Saraya also has an art gallery and a café, the latter of which serves fresh vegetarian food on a daily basis.

Inspiring a community

They grow as much of their own food as they can in the farm surrounding the ecostay, although seasonal monsoons have so far restricted the team from serving up ‘farm-to-table’ food only. However, the team is looking at how it can realistically harvest crops throughout the year.

Deeksha is also researching a variety of other sustainable measures to introduce into Saraya, including wind and hydropower as potential renewable energy sources to use on the site.

The importance of community and family is a clear driver for Deeksha, who explains how her four children have also played a key role in building Saraya. “We’re growing this venture with the entire family, who all have the same philosophy of living.”

It is that philosophy of living that is going a long way to inspiring others to turn to an eco-lifestyle.

As Deeksha says, “People get so inspired when they visit Saraya and they see that you can do something like this: live sustainably and carry out a zero-waste lifestyle. So we are inspiring a community here.”

This Author

Robyn Wilson is a freelance journalist currently writing and travelling across Asia. She is a former news editor at Construction News. She blogs at Weird Fishes and tweets at @RobynFWilson.

The shipping industry has “captured” UN talks on a climate target for the sector, using its clout to delay and weaken emissions curbs.

That is the conclusion of a report by business lobbying watchdog Influence Map about the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The study was released to coincide with a meeting of an IMO working group on greenhouse gases on Monday.

Based on analysis of delegate lists, meeting submissions and outcomes, it finds business interests exert an uncommon degree of influence over decisions. This, campaigners warn, jeopardises the international climate goals adopted in Paris.

Representatives from business

“The research proves almost conclusively that the shipping industry has been lobbying aggressively in the UN against climate change regulations,” Ben Youriev, an author of the report, told Climate Home. “They have completely captured policymaking bodies at the IMO.”

Perhaps the most striking discovery is the extent to which business interests infiltrate national delegations. Researchers found 31 out of 100 member states at the last IMO environmental committee meeting brought representatives from business.

Cosco and Vale are regular advisers to China and Brazil respectively, with the opportunity to advance their agenda in multiple subcommittees.

“The IMO appears the only UN agency to allow such extensive corporate representation in the policy making process,” the report said.

Very active

Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the IMO said: “Nominating people to its delegation is an internal domestic matter for each member state. The IMO Secretariat is not involved in those decisions.”

Special report: The tax-free shipping company that took control of a country’s UN mission

Five national delegations were led by commercial flag registries, not government officials. As Climate Home has previously reported, the Marshall Islands former foreign minister Tony de Brum faced resistance from registry figures when he sought to claim his seat at the forum.

While the low-lying Pacific island state is known for advocating ambitious climate action, its ship registry – the second largest in the world – is based in Virginia, US and has little accountability to the country’s elected leaders.

Registry president Bill Gallagher said in an interview with Maritime Reporterin July: “We used to send a taxi over to IMO and now we send a bus. And that’s true. I mean, we really spend a lot of money as a flag state, sending the right people to IMO.

“Our regulatory guys say, ‘If you’re not in the working groups, you’re not impacting what happened’. Where you really make a difference is at the working groups. So we’re not only just sending a couple guys to sit in a chair; we actually are very active in the working groups.”

Emerging economies

On top of these discreet channels of influence, the industry is visibly represented through trade associations like the International Chamber of Shipping, which have official observer status. Representing 80% of the world’s merchant fleet, the ICS brought a bigger team to the last environmental committee meeting than 85% of national delegations.

As an example of its sway, Influence Map points to last October’s environment meeting, when 13 countries explicitly endorsed the ICS proposal. In the end, member states adopted a timetable for setting climate targets very similar to that suggested by industry, deferring implementation of greenhouse gas curbs to 2023 at the earliest.

Shipping Watch reports that industry voices are also expected to prevail at this week’s meeting, occupying a middle ground between ambitious European states and more conservative emerging economies.

ICS, along with Bimco, Intertanko and Intercargo, are proposing an “aspirational” target to cap the sector’s emissions at 2008 levels (the pre-financial crash peak) and halve its carbon intensity by 2050. They oppose absolute emissions cuts, on the basis this could constrain growth in world trade.

Climate advocates say that is not nearly enough to align with the Paris Agreement goal to hold global warming “well below 2C”.

Ambitious action 

Shipping has a carbon footprint roughly the size of Germany. Without intervention, the IMO’s own research predicts that to grow 50-250% by 2050.

The latest available data, published by the International Council on Clean Transportation last week, showed emissions increasing 2.4% between 2013 and 2015.

Fuel efficiency improved for many ship classes over the period, but the gains were outweighed by increased demand.

Christiana Figueres, former UN climate chief and founder of Mission 2020, urged the sector to up its game. “The Paris Agreement committed the world to ambitious action on climate change, yet the shipping industry is not up to speed,” she said in a statement.

“It’s time to raise the anchor and seize the opportunity between now and 2020 to align with other industries and chart the course to well below 2C pathway”.

Report: Gas tanker crosses thawing Arctic without icebreaker for first time

Information transparency

Influence Map director Dylan Tanner told Climate Home he hoped the report would inspire progressive businesses and investors to intervene.

“We need the silent majority of companies to step up and address the difficult issues,” he said. “Investors hate the lack of transparency and they hate not having risks disclosed to them… that is a big target audience, for them to address this not just with ship owners but the shipping value chain as a whole.”

The report praised AP Moller-Maersk as one of the only shipping companies to have a transparent – and relatively ambitious – position on climate policy. Some Scandinavian shipowners associations also support stronger action.

Johannah Christensen of Global Maritime Forum, a Copenhagen-based body promoting collaboration on disruptive trends for the industry, said: “A low-carbon future is achievable if private and public stakeholders work together and must necessarily be based on facts and improved information transparency.”

Investors in the shipping sector may be failing in their fiduciary duties if they ignore “such damning evidence” of lobbying to obstruct climate action, said Alice Garton of environmental law firm Client Earth.

“These findings reveal an industry so resistant to climate progress that it has negotiated a sector-wide free pass on emissions. But no business is exempt from the effects of climate change and it’s time for these firms to be held to account.”

This Author

Megan Darby is deputy editor at Climate Home, where this article first appeared. She previously wrote about UK energy and water industries for leading sector publication Utility Week. She holds a Mathematics degree from Newcastle University. She tweets at @climatemegan.

The Saraya echo stay in Goa’s Bardez region in South India has grown widely in reputation since it opened its doors in December 2014.

Described by many as a “pocket of heaven”, it is a place where tourists and locals are able to escape the nearby busy beaches, either to stay overnight or just to grab something to eat.

Today’s generation

But now, Punjab-born owner, Deeksha Thind, is planning how best to inspire and involve more people in eco-living. This includes opening a new education centre.

“I think the future is education,” begins Deeksha, who is an architect by trade. “I find a lot of young people in today’s generation are all on sabbaticals because they don’t know what they want but they definitely know what they don’t want.

“So when I was thinking about what to do with the rest of the land, I thought I needed to look beyond the ecostay here.”

Deeksha’s idea for the land, which nears 2-acres in size, centres around an educational space, where people who are looking to change their careers, could stay whilst they are deciding what career they want to move in to.

This might include taking part in a free open university course whilst they are staying at Saraya – something which would be particularly beneficial for students who are unable to pay for pricey accommodation or additional studies.

Built from scratch

“People who can afford to pay [to lodge] would pay and those who couldn’t would volunteer and we would have a centre where people could live in a sustainable way, whilst contributing to the space,” she says.

The site would sit opposite the existing Saraya ecostay, which was also a creation of Deeksha’s.

“Nature and sustainability have been a part of my inner-self for some time but I didn’t realise they were there until I started building Saraya. And when I started building it, it just sort of flowed out of me very naturally.”

It wasn’t long before people started to get involved in the project, resulting in a place which marries together art, food and eco-living.

Built from scratch, Saraya’s ecostay is made from natural materials, with mud huts and treehouses forming the two different types of accommodation available on the site.

Creating treehouses

With help from YouTube videos and local knowledge, Deeksha and her team built the mud huts with recycled and natural materials.

“The idea was that we’d use glass bottles to honeycomb the walls to make them much stronger and reinforce them,” Deeksha says, explaining how the mud huts were formed.

“This then formed part of a recycling project, where glass bottles could be reused. I also loved the way the light shone through the bottles, adding to the design of the huts.”

Volunteers from the community helped with some of the building, including local homeschooled children, who were able to learn about the build process whilst joining in.

And rather than cutting down the existing trees on the land to make space for more huts, Deeksha decided to work around them by creating treehouses.

Vegetarian food

“Initially, we used the trees to do the building but later I disconnected them from the build, whilst letting them remain in the structure,” she says.

As a result, the material costs were the smallest expense on the project, which meant the money saved could be used to pay higher rates to underprivileged Indian builders employed on the scheme.

As Deeksha says, “The workers on this project come from different parts of India, where there might be droughts or floods so they can’t sustain themselves on their own land.

“So they have gone looking for work in other parts of India where they can use their skills and send money back to their family members who are left behind.”

Saraya also has an art gallery and a café, the latter of which serves fresh vegetarian food on a daily basis.

Inspiring a community

They grow as much of their own food as they can in the farm surrounding the ecostay, although seasonal monsoons have so far restricted the team from serving up ‘farm-to-table’ food only. However, the team is looking at how it can realistically harvest crops throughout the year.

Deeksha is also researching a variety of other sustainable measures to introduce into Saraya, including wind and hydropower as potential renewable energy sources to use on the site.

The importance of community and family is a clear driver for Deeksha, who explains how her four children have also played a key role in building Saraya. “We’re growing this venture with the entire family, who all have the same philosophy of living.”

It is that philosophy of living that is going a long way to inspiring others to turn to an eco-lifestyle.

As Deeksha says, “People get so inspired when they visit Saraya and they see that you can do something like this: live sustainably and carry out a zero-waste lifestyle. So we are inspiring a community here.”

This Author

Robyn Wilson is a freelance journalist currently writing and travelling across Asia. She is a former news editor at Construction News. She blogs at Weird Fishes and tweets at @RobynFWilson.

The Saraya echo stay in Goa’s Bardez region in South India has grown widely in reputation since it opened its doors in December 2014.

Described by many as a “pocket of heaven”, it is a place where tourists and locals are able to escape the nearby busy beaches, either to stay overnight or just to grab something to eat.

Today’s generation

But now, Punjab-born owner, Deeksha Thind, is planning how best to inspire and involve more people in eco-living. This includes opening a new education centre.

“I think the future is education,” begins Deeksha, who is an architect by trade. “I find a lot of young people in today’s generation are all on sabbaticals because they don’t know what they want but they definitely know what they don’t want.

“So when I was thinking about what to do with the rest of the land, I thought I needed to look beyond the ecostay here.”

Deeksha’s idea for the land, which nears 2-acres in size, centres around an educational space, where people who are looking to change their careers, could stay whilst they are deciding what career they want to move in to.

This might include taking part in a free open university course whilst they are staying at Saraya – something which would be particularly beneficial for students who are unable to pay for pricey accommodation or additional studies.

Built from scratch

“People who can afford to pay [to lodge] would pay and those who couldn’t would volunteer and we would have a centre where people could live in a sustainable way, whilst contributing to the space,” she says.

The site would sit opposite the existing Saraya ecostay, which was also a creation of Deeksha’s.

“Nature and sustainability have been a part of my inner-self for some time but I didn’t realise they were there until I started building Saraya. And when I started building it, it just sort of flowed out of me very naturally.”

It wasn’t long before people started to get involved in the project, resulting in a place which marries together art, food and eco-living.

Built from scratch, Saraya’s ecostay is made from natural materials, with mud huts and treehouses forming the two different types of accommodation available on the site.

Creating treehouses

With help from YouTube videos and local knowledge, Deeksha and her team built the mud huts with recycled and natural materials.

“The idea was that we’d use glass bottles to honeycomb the walls to make them much stronger and reinforce them,” Deeksha says, explaining how the mud huts were formed.

“This then formed part of a recycling project, where glass bottles could be reused. I also loved the way the light shone through the bottles, adding to the design of the huts.”

Volunteers from the community helped with some of the building, including local homeschooled children, who were able to learn about the build process whilst joining in.

And rather than cutting down the existing trees on the land to make space for more huts, Deeksha decided to work around them by creating treehouses.

Vegetarian food

“Initially, we used the trees to do the building but later I disconnected them from the build, whilst letting them remain in the structure,” she says.

As a result, the material costs were the smallest expense on the project, which meant the money saved could be used to pay higher rates to underprivileged Indian builders employed on the scheme.

As Deeksha says, “The workers on this project come from different parts of India, where there might be droughts or floods so they can’t sustain themselves on their own land.

“So they have gone looking for work in other parts of India where they can use their skills and send money back to their family members who are left behind.”

Saraya also has an art gallery and a café, the latter of which serves fresh vegetarian food on a daily basis.

Inspiring a community

They grow as much of their own food as they can in the farm surrounding the ecostay, although seasonal monsoons have so far restricted the team from serving up ‘farm-to-table’ food only. However, the team is looking at how it can realistically harvest crops throughout the year.

Deeksha is also researching a variety of other sustainable measures to introduce into Saraya, including wind and hydropower as potential renewable energy sources to use on the site.

The importance of community and family is a clear driver for Deeksha, who explains how her four children have also played a key role in building Saraya. “We’re growing this venture with the entire family, who all have the same philosophy of living.”

It is that philosophy of living that is going a long way to inspiring others to turn to an eco-lifestyle.

As Deeksha says, “People get so inspired when they visit Saraya and they see that you can do something like this: live sustainably and carry out a zero-waste lifestyle. So we are inspiring a community here.”

This Author

Robyn Wilson is a freelance journalist currently writing and travelling across Asia. She is a former news editor at Construction News. She blogs at Weird Fishes and tweets at @RobynFWilson.