This morning Climate Liberation Aotearoa supporters will be at Queen’s Wharf in Tāmaki Makaurau welcoming passengers from the Coral Princess with a street theatre performance depicting the impact of the cruise ship industry on marine ecosystems.

“We will be there to greet the Coral Princess and raise awareness of the cruise ship industry’s outsized but under-the-radar pollution” said Climate Liberation Aoteraroa spokesperson Michael Apathy. ”This is a super stinky industry. The Coral Princess sends as much pollution into our atmosphere as all of Auckland’s cars. Yet that pollution is not being counted in New Zealand’s emissions budgets. Cruise ships get to pollute for free.”

Last year Aucklanders experienced the Anniversary floods, then Cyclone Gabrielle less than two weeks later. Catastrophic wildfires are again raging in Canada while temperatures in the arctic and the Mediterranean Sea have just shattered all records.

Yet the industry is growing rapidly in number and size of ships, adding to an already choked-up atmosphere. A recent report found that cruise ships pumped out 17% more carbon dioxide in 2022 than they did in 2019 and methane emissions rose 500% over the same period.

“While the performance features marine animals and has a lighter tone, really what we’re trying to get at is the very real threat to life on earth that emissions at this scale pose, to human populations as well as to animal ecosystems,” says Apathy.

“The cruise ship industry in Aotearoa is acting as if the Climate Emergency doesn’t exist. Right now the industry bigwigs are meeting in style up the road at the Cordis Hotel, planning to grow the industry meaning more emissions, more pollution, and more marine mammal death. When will someone be accountable for these emissions?”

Climate Liberation Aotearoa has three demands of the government: include international shipping and aviation in New Zealand’s emissions budgets and reductions plans; end subsidies for the cruise industry; and ban cruise ships from visiting sensitive natural environments like Fiordland.

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