King Canute muses in the South Seas: Why aren’t Pacific Islands transitioning to low carbon sea transport futures?

Goundar, Avnita and Newell, Alison and Nuttall, Peter and Rojon, Isabelle and Samuwai, Jale (2017) King Canute muses in the South Seas: Why aren’t Pacific Islands transitioning to low carbon sea transport futures? Marine Policy, 81 . pp. 80-90. ISSN 0308-597X

PDF (Post-script version) - Accepted Version Restricted to Repository staff only until June 2018. Download (433kB)

Abstract

Transition to low carbon sea transport is a logical response to the extreme dependency of the Pacific Islands region on imported fossil fuel, its significant vulnerability to the effects of climate change and the critical shipping needs of Pacific Island countries (PICs). Building on previous work in low carbon sea transport in the Pacific, this paper further considers the barriers to achieving such transition by assessing, through a ‘post-Paris Agreement’ lens, the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) submitted by PICs and contrasting these to the near total lack of investment and planning for low carbon transition in the transport sector with the parallel occurrence in the electricity sector where ~USD 2 billion of donor investment is deployed or queued despite electricity using only ~20% of fossil fuel across the region. Consistent with recent international studies, inadequate and inappropriate financing and policy have been identified as dominant transition barriers for low carbon sea transport development in PICs. This paper further examines the regional level barriers to policy development, and finds them inhibited by the silo nature of the major regional actors. The implications that the Paris Agreement has for climate financing to support the essential research and capacity development needed to underpin a successful low carbon sea transport transition strategy at any useful scale and speed are also considered in this paper.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GF Human ecology. Anthropogeography H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HE Transportation and Communications
Divisions:	Faculty of Science, Technology and Environment (FSTE) > School of Marine Studies Pacific Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development (PACE-SD)
Depositing User:	Fulori Nainoca - Waqairagata
Date Deposited:	20 Mar 2017 22:19
Last Modified:	20 Mar 2017 22:19
URI:	http://repository.usp.ac.fj/id/eprint/9692

UNSPECIFIED

Actions (login required)

View Item