Transcript
PETER NUTTALL: If the Pacific is going to make these demands and lead in the way that it has in the international sector, we must deliver domestically at home. A lot of the efforts that will now happen around the world are going to focus on large-scale shipping. Here in the Pacific it's small-scale and there is very, very little work being done on how we can de-carbonise that level of shipping - but actually that level we can make far greater savings than they can with really, really big ships. The offer we've been making to the world is use the Pacific positively for a testing ground this time. Bring your technologies, put them on our small boats and try them out in our Pacific Island countries and prove what works. That way we get access to the best changes in technology and the world gets the access to the results of the experiment.
TIM GLASGOW: So the Pacific can take a real leading role in how this works?
PN: Absolutely, and the Pacific already is. So the university has established a centre of excellence with the Marshall Islands Government up in Majuro - the Micronesian Centre for Sustainable Transport. We're working with leading German innovators, with leading experts from the UK, from Korea, from Australia, from America, looking now at what do we do. In a very, very practical sense how do we put shipping out there in the Pacific to service out peoples' needs that demonstrates that low-carbon shipping is part of the solution. Not only for emissions, but for inter-island connectivity. We don't have good ships, we don't have good ships, we don't have the people to man them and we don't have the money for the governments to resource what are modern uneconomic groups. Most of the ships here are burning 40, 50, 60 percent of their opex [operational] cost on fuel. So if we can come up with solutions that cut those costs by 30, 70, 80 percent of the fuel cost, that's all money that can be spent on better maintenance, on better training, on better qualifications, on better safety equipment.
TG: So it's kind of a holistic approach to upgrading and modernising shipping in the Pacific?
PN: Absolutely, What is undeniable about that agreement that was reached in the IMO last week is that there is about to be a revolution in shipping. We saw this revolution happen when sails changed to coal. We saw it again when coal changed to oil. We've seen it with the change in LNG and with nuclear power. This is the opportunity to re-equip a modern fleet of fishing vessels that are appropriate to our small island conditions.
