UNCTAD’s Review of Maritime Transport 2023 calls for a “just and equitable transition” to a decarbonized shipping industry. The sector, whose greenhouse gas emissions have risen 20% over the last decade, operates an ageing fleet that runs almost exclusively on fossil fuels. As global leaders prepare for the next UN …
policy on environment: On May 18, the Union cabinet approved the controversial National Environment Policy. The sanction came after much dithering and after the daft made several rounds of the prime minister's office, union environment ministry and ministry of law for over two years. The first draft, which came out …
following the French warship Le Clemenceau, an Iranian tanker, M V Rashleigh, is bound for Gujarat's Alang port for dismantling, that has created a controversy. The ship arrived at Alang on April 9, 2006, but was left stranded in mid-sea as the Gujarat Maritime Board (gmb) denied it beaching permission …
A New Jersey court found a Singapore shipping company guilty of seven felony charges and has fined it us $6.5 million for illegal dumping off the New Jersey coast. Wallenius Ship Management Pte Ltd came under a us Coast Guard investigation in November after the crew of one of its …
the Union finance minister's (fm's) announcement to restore a five per cent custom duty on the import of steel scrap for melting has given some hope to shipbreakers. The announcement has come at a time when the ailing shipbreaking industry in Alang was striving to get over the setback of …
STRAIT FORWARD A 150-year-old dream acquires shape The channel across the Palk Straits between India and Sri Lanka is expected to be operational by 2008: it will allow ships sailing between the east and west coasts of India a straight passage through India's territorial waters, instead of circumnavigating Sri Lanka. …
A D Taylor, a commander in the Indian Navy, was the first in 1860 to propose a channel allowing ships to move between the eastern and the western coast without rounding Sri Lanka. The alignment he proposed involved cutting a canal though land in many areas, unlike the current alignment …
I still remember the sharp chill that went down my spine when I first set my gaze upon Alang shipyard on a spring afternoon in 1996. As far as I could see from my elevation at the north end of the yard, there were nearly a hundred vessels, or what …
For the third time, Le Clemenceau has been forced to turn back and return to France. The French government summoned the decommissioned ship back even though France's defence minister argued that there were no suitable scrapyards in Europe. Clemenceau had been waiting outside Indian territorial waters for permission to dock …
The decommisssioned French warship Le Clemenceau may be on its way back, but all is not well at Alang. Another French ship China Sea Discovery caught fire at the shipyard on February 17, 2006, killing five labourers. The 19,000 tonne passenger vessel, now owned by Kishor Bansal, went up in …
the Bangladesh government has banned the decommissioned Norwegian cruise liner, S S Norway, from entering its shores after receiving information that it was carrying 1,250 tonnes of asbestos. The ban came after the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (bela) threatened legal action if the ship was allowed into Bangladesh's territorial waters. …
How hazardous is dismantling a decommissioned ship? It does have dangerous substances like asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls (pcbs) and spent oil. Who should be allowed to engage in shipbreaking? What rules exist to ensure the safety of labour involved in dismantling ships and the environment? A brief recap is essential for …
function graph() { var popurl="image/20060228/30_graph.jpg" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=400,height=250,scrollbars=yes") } As long as there are ships, they would have to be dismantled. The shipbreaking business is directly proportional to the total global ship fleet. Between 1994 and 2003, about 4,700 ships were demolished worldwide. Dismantling is expensive
The shipbreakers of Alang are an exasperated lot. "As it is we are crippled by excise duty and competition. Then these Greenpeace activists make business tough for us. Shipbreaking falls under 32 government departments. How are we supposed to operate,' says R K Jain, operator of a ship breaking plot …
Le Clemenceau is undoubtedly big. It has dominated more than its fair share of media space. But it does deserve it. Not because of its scale or the fact that it is carrying asbestos, whether in its cargo or its structure. But that the Le Clemenceau's fate will set a …
By the time you read this, the decision would have been taken: to allow or not to allow the French warship Le Clemenceau into India, so that it can be dismantled with unknown quantities of toxic substances in its structure. The decision could be to send the ship back for …
The decommissioned French aircraft carrier Clemenceau is heading for India after being released by the Egyptian authorities. It is to be dismantled at the ship-breaking yards of Alang in Gujarat pending the Supreme Court (sc) decision on February 13, 2006, on whether the ship should be allowed to enter the …
The European Commission (ec) recently issued a second formal warning to Slovenia to implement European Union rules on the prevention of sea pollution. In case of further non-compliance, ec threatened to drag the East European country to the court of the European Communities in Luxembourg. ec had issued its first …
The Taiwanese government has announced that it will dismantle 120 tuna longline vessels, about five per cent of its fleet. Environmentalists praised this reduction as a boon for marine animals injured and killed in large numbers by longlines in the Pacific Ocean. Longline fishing is a technique in which thousands …
the Prime Minister's office (pmo) has raised serious concerns about the Sethusamudram Shipping Canal Project (sscp) in Tamil Nadu. The sscp aims to provide a route linking India's eastern and western shores, doing away with the current need to circumnavigate Sri Lanka. In a note issued in the first week …
