{"id":64045,"date":"2017-07-07T12:00:05","date_gmt":"2017-07-07T17:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/selasite.azurewebsites.net\/the-panama-canal-is-doing-some-good-while-upending-historic-trade-routes\/"},"modified":"2023-06-29T01:15:06","modified_gmt":"2023-06-29T06:15:06","slug":"the-panama-canal-is-doing-some-good-while-upending-historic-trade-routes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/the-panama-canal-is-doing-some-good-while-upending-historic-trade-routes\/","title":{"rendered":"The Panama Canal is doing some good while upending historic trade routes"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"content-well\">\n<ul class=\"abstract\">\n<li class=\"abstract__item\">\n<div class=\"abstract__item-text\">Expanded waterway lowers CO2 emissions by 17 million tons<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"abstract__item\">\n<div class=\"abstract__item-text\">LNG, LPG trades expand sharply; bigger, better ships deployed<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"body-copy\">\n<p>Fresh from a\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/micanaldepanama.com\/expansion\/faq\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Details of expansion\">$5.25 billion, nine-year expansion<\/a>\u00a0that\u2019s upending decades-old trade routes, it turns out the Panama Canal is also doing a little good for the planet.<\/p>\n<p>By offering a short-cut to deliver billions of dollars of Asian-made goods to America\u2019s East Coast ports, the waterway has helped its\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/quote\/MAERSKB:DC\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Container shipping companies, peer group analysis\" rel=\"noopener\">shipping company customers<\/a>\u00a0to lower their collective carbon emissions by 17 million metric tons during the first full year of operation. When the expansion was planned, the authority\u2019s internal forecast was 9.6 million tons, according to Alexis Rodriguez, environment protection specialist at the Panama Canal Authority.<\/p>\n<p>For Panama, successfully combating climate change could be pivotal to the country\u2019s future. The canal is filled by waters that have flowed for centuries down from the country\u2019s mountains. There have been times in the past few years when low water levels forced the canal to impose minor restrictions on the ships it allowed through.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we don\u2019t take measures to cut pollution then we will all suffer in our pockets,\u201d Rodriguez said in an interview in London, where he was attending a meeting of global governments to discuss the shipping industry\u2019s contribution to combating climate change.<\/p>\n<p data-tout-type=\"story\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2016-05-25\/panama-canal-fever-sweeps-globe-again-as-new-era-in-trade-nears\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click for full story\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more: how expansion of the canal redrew trade routes<\/a><\/p>\n<p>As well as helping Asian manufacturers to deliver goods to the U.S. east coast faster, the widened canal has redrawn commodity trade routes. America\u2019s booming energy supplies &#8212; particularly liquefied gases and even oil &#8212; are flowing in the opposite direction like never before. The link can also be used to haul iron ore, coal and grains to Asia from\u00a0places like Brazil, Colombia and Argentina.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Shorter journeys, better ships<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The boost to the environment comes from the fact bigger, more efficient ships are now going through. Critically, they can shave thousands of miles off journeys, meaning they consume much less fuel.<\/p>\n<p>Panama\u2019s support for tougher environmental rules for shipping, which also includes promoting limits on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2017-04-04\/global-shipping-fleet-braces-for-chaos-of-60-billion-fuel-shock\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Global Shipping Fleet Braces for Chaos of $60 Billion Fuel Shock\" rel=\"noopener\">sulfur emissions<\/a>, stems partly from a desire to avoid any longer-term threat to the canal\u2019s water levels, Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"661\" height=\"323\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/dirty-ships-panama_20170707.webp\" alt=\"Dirty -ships -panama _20170707\" data-udi=\"umb:\/\/media\/e83e783a4b2b494a8d315376355536c6\"><\/p>\n<p>The authority now expects its customers to save about 320 million tons of CO2 in the first decade of the expanded operation, said Rodriguez. That\u2019s about double the amount it anticipated when the expansion was planned. It\u2019s also about the same as Spain\u2019s annual emissions.<\/p>\n<p>He spoke as more than 200 government and industry representatives met in London to discuss how to cut carbon emissions from shipping operations to zero by the second half of the century, down from as much as 3 percent of global emissions now. They met at the International Maritime Organization, the United Nations\u2019 shipping agency.<\/p>\n<p>Imposing mandatory emissions rules would close a loophole left by the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Ships engaged in international maritime trade mostly burn heavy fuel oil, one of the dirtiest and cheapest forms of energy. IMO members will return to discuss their levels of ambition in October and an agreement could be drafted by next year.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Panama Canal is doing some good while upending historic trade routes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63506,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boletines-regionales"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}