Has Prince Charles’ Nature Pledge Been Undermined By Including Fossil Fuel Producers?

The British heir to the throne, Prince Charles, made an announcement last week calling for large businesses to make a pledge toward climate and biodiversity.

He has called this the Terra Carta, or Earth’s charter, and named it after the 800 year old Magna Carta in England that first enshrined rights under a monarchy.

In a speech at the One Planet Summit being hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday, Prince Charles described the need for business to step up and protect the “unique treasure trove of species” on our planet.

However, the inclusion of one signatory in particular has raised a lot of eyebrows among environmental groups. Specific concerns has been raised by environmental groups about the inclusion of British oil giant, BP, which has been earning an average of $300 billion a year for the past decade from selling fossil fuels.

BP has a new CEO, Bernard Looney, who announced a bold biodiversity strategy in June last year and promised to transform his organization.

However, controversy has since grown around BP’s involvement in the oil spill in Mauritius last August. Last week, BP confirmed that the oil being carried on the Wakashio was supplied by its Singapore shipping division, BP Marine.  This confirmation was made by BP six months after the oil spill in Mauritius.

In this time, there have been serious concerns raised by scientists about how unusually toxic this fuel was with the deaths of almost 100 whales and dolphins within days of coming into contact with the oil (estimates from the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation), the exposure of thousands of islanders exposed to the oil, and ongoing harmful algal blooms along a series of internationally protected coral reefs.

The oil spill occurred in one of the richest areas of biodiversity on the planet, amid a series of small island nature reserves that contained the last remaining specimens of certain species, and were being carefully nursed back to strength when the oil spill occurred. No image of Mauritius’ 1000 year old brain coral - the oldest in the Indian Ocean and the centerpiece of the Blue Bay Marine Park - has been released since the oil spill.

Given BP’s pledge around biodiversity protection that was made in June, environmental groups have been asking why the oil giant was not more proactive in supporting a network of important biodiversity hotspots that were impacted by oil produced by BP, and whose chemical composition was described as ‘surprising’ by one of the world’s leading oil spill chemical analyst group at Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

BP ‘formally stonewalled’ investigation into Mauritius oil spill

Internal Government memos have revealed that although formally requested by Australian authorities in August, BP did not provide the sample of BP’s VLSFO fuel that was needed to support the inquiry into the oil spill, or to help restoration efforts. Australian authorities also confirmed on Monday that they had still not received the sample of VLSFO fuel from BP that was supplied to the Wakashio.

The type of ship fuel supplied by BP - called VLSFO - is particularly controversial. An investigation following the oil spill in Mauritius, uncovered reports by the German and Finnish Governments last year that this type of fuel produces higher carbon dioxide emissions, not less, through a compound called Black Carbon.

Industry reports have revealed that VLSFO fuel has also been found to be responsible for a series of ship engine failures around the world, with London-based Lloyds reporting a doubling of cases in 2020 linked to the fuel’s impact on ship engine cylinders.

Reports by Japanese shipping giant MOL and BP itself, appear to show the fuel supplied to the Wakashio had exceeded critical ship engine safety parameters. 

BP issued a statement on Tuesday, saying that its fuel met UN regulator IMO standards (who have also been caught up in the ship fuel controversy), but BP did not say whether certain properties in its fuel exceeded ship engine safety standards defined by the ship engine manufacturers.

BP has not handed over the sample of the original VLSFO fuel supplied to the Wakashio that it should still have from its July 14 Singapore refueling operation of the Wakashio, to allow these claims to be independently verified.

The sample of the original source of the fuel from BP is critical to complete the oil spill modelling work to understand the full environmental and human health impact of the oil. Authorities in Australia had been offering to assist authorities in Mauritius with this analysis.

Although BP denies hindering or impeding the investigation, the original VLSFO sample from Singapore has still not been passed to Mauritian or Australian scientific investigators for analysis.

The world’s leading oil spill analysis expert, Dr Chris Reddy from U.S. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, who was also involved in the BP-Mitsui Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, was instead forced to analyze a sample that had been in the ocean for ten days. He observed that the sample exhibited chemical signatures that were ‘surprising,’ ‘complex,’ ‘unusual,’ and ‘unlike anything seen before’ in an oil spill. BP’s partner in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Mitsui, are an associated company of vessel operator Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL), who had chartered the Wakashio for the journey to and from Brazil and would have been responsible for the route of the vessel.

Why VLSFO ship fuel is so controversial

The ship fuel being carried on the Japanese Bulk Carrier, the Wakashio was an experimental ship fuel that was being mixed with jet fuel. COVID-19 had complicated the situation and made the oil even more dangerous. Articles in industry publications at the time, such as Bunkerspot and Marine Power, showed that the industry were aware of these risks.

This fuel had been rushed into the shipping industry without proper scrutiny and no regular monitoring (major Governments around the world confirmed that they have not been regularly sampling VLSFO ship fuel).  It was the fastest uptake of a fuel by any industry in history, moving from less than 5% of ships in September 2019, to over 70% by January 2020.

Global shipping is one of the worst climate polluters, producing more greenhouse gas emissions than Germany and France combined.  Each ship produces as much pollution as 1 million cars, and there are 60,000 large, ocean-bound ships in the world. If it were a country, the global shipping industry would be the sixth worst polluter, along with emissions from Japan. The shipping industry had attempted to avoid emissions regulation by controversially opting out of the Paris Climate Agreement, and introducing this controversial VLSFO low-sulfur fuel instead as a means to deflect attention.

Environmental NGOs have described this fuel as a super-pollutant ‘Frankenstein fuel,’ and have called for it to be banned in the Arctic and other biodiversity sensitive regions, such as around the coast of Mauritius.

Ocean Rebellion accuse BP of ‘greenwashing’ and ‘breaking the law’

Environmental NGO, Ocean Rebellion, has been leading a strong set of campaigns against pollution by the global shipping industry, after the shipping industry escaped scrutiny from most other environmental groups.

Spokesperson, Clive Russell, called from greater accountability by BP.

“We applaud Prince Charles in his attempt to begin change with the ‘Terra Carta.’ Ocean Rebellion does, however, implore him to speak out against the oil industry, especially BP for its continued law breaking and fudging of facts.

Not only has BP repeatedly blocked attempts to sample its ‘experimental' low-sulfur oil spilled on the Mauritian coastline, it has also ignored the Mauritian pleas for help.

We ask Prince Charles to say ‘Shame on you BP, stop acting like colonialists of old, and start spilling truth not oil. In fact stop remixing petroleum, stop greenwashing, and tell the world the truth about what’s  in your oil.’”

Prince Charles’ Shipping Roundtable on 2 February

Prince Charles will have the opportunity to address these issues in a Shipping Industry Roundtable that he is hosting in two weeks on 2 February 2021.

Global shipping decided to break targets set in the Paris Agreement by pushing for a controversial set of measures that will see emissions rise 15% over the next decade rather than be halved over this period. Environmental NGOs have accused the regulator, London-based IMO of regulatory capture by the shipping industry.

The IMO had taken the shipping industry out of the Paris Climate Agreement, and pushed for a series of industry self-regulation measures.  However, in each subsequent meeting, the Japan-chaired Environmental Committee has continued to break the thresholds of greenhouse gas emissions defined by the Paris Climate Agreement.

The shipping industry have used a series of industry roundtables, white papers and discussion forums to delay taking the actions that should have already been introduced last year, such as introducing new ship efficiency measures. Even the shipping industry’s proposal to use ‘ship efficiency ratings,’ similar to washing machine energy ratings, has attracted criticism by environmental groups for not being linked to how the ship is run, which is the biggest driver of pollution.

Ocean Conservancy’s Dan Hubbell, said that “The climate crisis is already here and the shipping industry must do its part to transition away from fossil fuels now. A zero-carbon future for global shipping is possible, and electro-fuels can play a key role while also delivering powerful benefits for people, local economies and our planet.”

The European Union, United States and U.K. are now exploring regional approaches to regulate shipping emissions, which would be separate from the IMO. However, this means that weaker pollution and safety standards are being pushed onto poorer island nations like Mauritius, which finds itself at the cross roads of major shipping lanes and defenseless against large shipping interests who insist on accessing the territorial waters of small islands, without proper protections in place.

In 2019, the nation of Solomon Islands suffered the same fate when a Hong Kong registered bulk carrier, Solomon Trader, ran aground and spilled its heavy bunker fuel in a UNESCO world heritage site. It has been over two years and the islanders are still waiting for compensation for this shipping and oil spill disaster.

The London-based organization downplaying oil spills around the world

One of the most controversial statistics of all is produced by a little known London-based organization called ITOPF.

ITOPF was set up by oil tanker owners to reduce the amount of insurance they would have to pay in the event of an oil spill.

BP and the Wakashio’s insurer, Japan P&I Club, both sit on the Board of ITOPF, raising serious questions about conflicts of interests with ITOPF’s involvement with the oil spill response in Mauritius, where no original samples of the VLSFO fuel ended up being collected or analyzed despite ITOPF having a high profile presence in Mauritius during the oil spill. ITOPF has not answered any media question about its conduct in Mauritius, as further emails were released by Greenpeace revealing that ITOPF’s scientists were aware from the very early days of the oil spill that the fuel was supplied by BP and was the controversial VLSFO fuel.

Ever since the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska in 1989, oil tankers have had to install double hulls which provides an additional layer of protection.

However, the shipping industry lobbied so that other types of ships would be exempt, such as bulk carriers, that consist of half of the ships on the ocean and carry large industrial materials such as coal, iron ore, grain. The Wakashio was a bulk carrier – one of the biggest in the world, and as large as the largest U.S. nuclear powered aircraft carriers.

As ships have ballooned in size (doubled in the last decade), the amount of fuel they require has also increased. This means that if today’s giant cargo ships and bulk carriers spill oil, it could be much more devastating than oil tankers in the past. This is linked to the type of fuel powering ships – a heavier, thicker and more toxic fuel that contaminates the marine environment for decades, rather than the lighter crude oil on oil tankers.

The London-based organization, ITOPF, should be collecting statistics on these type of spills (which are known as bunker spills). However, ITOPF does not collect or publish such data, even though such data can easily be compiled from a range of shipping and insurance databases.

Instead, ITOPF only publishes data on oil spills from oil tankers.

Not only does ITOPF not publish bunker spills, but it is also ignoring the major dirty secret of shipping – ship engine sludge.

What is ship engine sludge and why should environmentalists be concerned?

The type of fuel being used in 70% of global shipping, low-sulfur VLSFO fuel, has been found to cause several major issues with ship engines. These findings have been shared in industry conferences, trade publications and by seafarer organizations.

One of these issues is that this fuel clogs up the purifier and filters on the fuel lines that lead to the ship engines. This causes excess waste of fuel and for this fuel to become unusable.  So up to 10% of the fuel could end up being discarded as a result, according to ship oil specialists.

This wastage means that VLSFO fuel is leading to higher consumption of fossil fuels, and carbon dioxide emissions per mile travelled by ship.

Even worse, rather than disposing of this fuel safely at port, many ships are simply pouring this heavy sludge overboard and polluting the marine environment (as seen in the video above).  This was known as ‘magic pipe’ operations, and is something many ship inspectors attempt to look for evidence of. This oil sludge accumulates in marine life, as eventually end up concentrated in apex predators such as tuna at the top of the biological food chain. 

In theory, such dumping of sludge overboard should be illegal. However, the way the London-based UN shipping regulator, the IMO, has drafted international ship inspection laws, means that this regulation is rarely monitored and enforced.

Ship inspectors can easily find out whether ships have been using ‘magic pipes’ to pump fuel overboard by inspecting the oil record book that all ships are supposed to keep. A look through inspection records on the EU shipping database, called EQUASIS, reveals many discrepancies with oil record books that were identified by ship inspectors around the world.

In 2016, cruise ship giant, Princess Cruise Line (part of U.K. and U.S.-listed Carnival Cruises CCL.U ) was fined $40 million from U.S. regulators for using ‘magic pipes’ to dispose of their ship’s oil sludge across the world’s oceans.

What can Prince Charles do if he is serious about change in shipping?

With Prince Charles’ roundtable just two weeks away, there are several actions that he can insist on, if he wants to see real change in the industry. These are all changes that can begin today, and do not need to wait a decade (as the shipping industry likes to promise).

1. Request that BP supports the Mauritius oil spill investigation by providing the sample of its fuel from the Singapore operation. Mauritian and Australia authorities had requested this sample in August, and have still not yet received this. The sample is crucial for the modelling of the oil spill to be carried out so that the long term health and environmental remediation can be based on robust science.

2. Call for a full investigation into the carbon dioxide emissions of VLSFO fuels to make sure global shipping has not just introduced fuels that are increasing greenhouse gas emissions. No Government has been able to regularly test this fuel.

3. Call for a coalition of the willing in shipping to commit to halve their emissions by 2030, and publish these results annually. Well publicized solutions exist today to achieve the efficiencies to meet these targets, so there should be no excuse why shipping is not held publicly accountable for meeting these annual efficiency goals.

4. Financial disclosure. Call for the global shipping industry to publish how much they are investing in alternative fuel technologies.  The reason the shipping industry complains there are no alternative fuel technologies is because the industry has strategically underinvested in fuel R&D, as other forms of transport have done (e.g., Tesla and electric vehicles). The UN regulator, the IMO, is not collecting these statistics, and a review of all major energy R&D hubs around the world reveal that the shipping industry only invests nominal marketing amounts, rather than showing it is serious about change.

5. End secretive offshore ‘Flags of Convenience.’ The reason that global shipping has gotten away with lower environmental standards is through the use of six ‘flags of convenience’ nations that dominate 70% of shipping (Panama, Marshall Islands, Liberia, Malta, Singapore, Hong Kong). The lower standards and inspection regimes that is used by multi-billion dollar shipping companies, have meant that most of the rules passed by the IMO are seldom enforced.

This also means that if Prince Charles and the Sustainability Markets Initiative that his office runs, is serious about climate change, he also needs to invite more diverse climate leaders to become part of the discussions, as President-elect Biden has done, rather than just industry insiders who are adept at employed sophisticated strategies to avoid making the operational changes their industry needs to.

Environment movement also needs greater transparency

In Prince Charles’ announcement last week, he also made a pledge for $10 billion to fund the Natural Capital Alliance. This call for funding completely misses the point.

The issue in the environment community is not lack of funds.

The issue is the lack of performance management and transparency.

There are more than sufficient funds in sustainability to make the impact that is needed, but the environment movement is stuck in old ways of making change, and have themselves to blame for the lack of transparency where funds are going, how effectively these funds are being spent, and what is the criteria of success is.

The world will see a $60 trillion economic transformation over the next two decades toward sustainability as new middle class households around the world demand more sustainable alternatives. This is the potential pool of funding for those in the environmental movement. Just look at the market valuations of Tesla and alternative protein products. What is lacking is the high risk catalytic capital to accelerate this transition, which market forces are not providing.

This is not what most funds in the environmental movement has been raised for.

A significant portion of environmental spending is spent on White Papers, Roundtables, Reports, Public-Private Partnership Coalition-forming. However, this rarely leads to the operational changes needed, with management groups highlighting that over 70% of transformations fail. The world is in a race against the climate crisis, and such reports are seen by a newer environmental movement as delaying tactics used by industry to avoid making the changes they know they need to make.

Philanthropists have become the go-to funders for many climate and environmental initiatives as Governments have faced fiscal pressures and companies only invest in environmental solutions that offer the greatest marketing capital for them.

Billionaire Jeff Bezos missed an opportunity to revamp the environmental movement by investing $800 million in very traditional environmental groups that are not on trajectory to disrupt carbon emissions at the rate needed.  Linear thinking will not address an exponential problem, as the climate and biodiversity challenges are.

Prince Charles can learn from lessons from what has and has not worked in philanthropy in how he shapes his Terra Carta, and the conditions upon which companies are invited to share his platform.

Does President Biden bring hope for change?

The intent for Terra Carta is the right one, but the way it is currently structured allows too much risk that this effort will be undermined by industry insiders who will push for incremental change.

Several major UN and international organizations have already been heavily influenced by industry bodies seeking to legitimize their corporate commitments, without making the changes at a level needed to stay within climate and biodiversity agreements.  The strong influence of industry bodies over regulators is how the VLSFO ship fuel issues were allowed to materialize in the first place.

President Biden assumes office next week with a highly diverse climate science team and an electoral pledge for enforceable targets for global shipping. 

A combination of regulatory pressure from the coalition of the willing (initially comprised of the U.K., U.S., and EU), with support of the G20 and independent review of how the global shipping industry is governed and structured, is critical if any leader is serious about change in shipping, climate and biodiversity.

If BP CEO Bernard Looney is serious about standing up for the global climate and biodiversity challenge, it means standing up for these issues in every place that its products touches the environment or society, not just in the narrow operational sense.

That is what is called climate and biodiversity leadership.