Ocean Rebellion protesters demonstrate outside the International Maritime Organisation headquarters in London, Britain November 15, 2020. REUTERS/Simon Dawson
by John Konrad (gCaptain) The London Headquarters of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), was besieged again by Ocean Rebellion protestors on Monday, decrying the agency’s failure to act on climate change and ocean pollution but this time they brought gasoline and ignited a viking funeral pyre on the sidewalk outside the UN agency’s London headquarters.
“Country representatives are meeting virtually next week to decide on carbon dioxide emissions for the next decade,” says Nishan Degnarain, author of Soul of the Sea in the Age of the Algorithm. “However, the proposals have been universally criticized by all major environmental groups for reneging on both the Paris Agreement as well as a voluntary agreement that the shipping industry had agreed to in 2018 to reduce carbon emissions.”
This is not the first attack on the IMO by this group. According to Forbes the IMO as well as the London Embassies of Panama and Japan were also focal points for the protests late last month, given their powerful influence over the IMO as ‘Tier A’ countries on the ten-country ‘Tier A’ IMO Council. Japan has an even greater influence on climate outcomes as it also controls the powerful environmental committee at the IMO and has long been seen to favor its domestic shipping industry with lower emission standards.
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The group has also recently used large video projectors to light up hulls of the hull of cruise ships with slogans like ‘illegal dumper’ and ‘ship of fools’.
Updated: November 18, 2020 (Originally published November 16, 2020)
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