SEATTLE (May 26, 2023) — Business Insider has reported that Amazon has ditched part of its climate pledge and deleted its blog post that announced the Shipment Zero initiative. Instead of continuing to target to make all of its shipments net zero carbon, with 50% of all shipments net zero by 2030, Amazon has ditched this commitment and rolled broader goals into its “Climate Pledge” — with a goal to reach net zero carbon across all its operations by 2040, which according to Business Insider is a decade later than the 50% “Shipment Zero” goal. Shipping emissions are a significant source of scope 3 carbon emissions,which are defined as those resulting from activities not owned or controlled by a company. Bold steps toward shipping decarbonization are necessary for any retailer to become emission-free.

According to the University of Washington, Amazon shipped an estimated 7.7 billion packages globally, based on its nearly $470 billion in sales in 2021. If each of these packages were a 1-foot square box and they were stacked on top of one another, the pile would be six times higher than the distance from the Earth to the Moon. Backing down on its shipping and climate commitments is a significant and worrying prospect. 

舰艇零度的声明

“We are disappointed to learn that Amazon has ditched their shipping commitments and watered down their Climate Pledge,” said Eric Leveridge, Ship It Zero Lead, Pacific Environment. “Amazon is uniquely situated to be a climate leader at a time when we need it the most, and committing to concrete interim goals are necessary to spur change.We call on Amazon to recommit to cleaning up its shipping act, and commit to zero-emissions ocean shipping by 2030.”

“We are concerned to hear that Amazon is backing off its previous commitments to cleaning up shipping throughout its operation, including ocean shipping. We need big retailers to increase their targets to achieve 100% zero-emission shipping by 2030.  Not back off of their previous commitments. They must act now and rapidly clean up shipping to ensure a healthier, cleaner tomorrow for our communities and our oceans and we fully intend to hold any retailer accountable that strays from this path,” said Kendra Ulrich, Shipping Campaigns Director for Stand.earth.

航运业的污染问题

全球航运业占到 3%占全球气候排放的3%，比全球航空旅行还多。如果航运业是一个国家，它将是世界第六大气候污染者。但由于海运业通过谈判将自己排除在联合国《巴黎协定》之外，该行业的减排努力比其他行业要慢。

约有 90%的世界贸易是通过海上运输的，而目前一切照旧的情况下，排放量将增长到 50%比2018年的水平增长50%。虽然国际海事组织指出，船舶尺寸的增加和旨在创造更好的燃料效率的操作改进导致了排放强度的下降，但年度绝对排放量仍在增加。

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零排放运输 "是一项气候和公共健康运动，旨在推动世界上最大的公司实现100%零排放的海运。它敦促沃尔玛、家得宝、亚马逊、塔吉特和宜家等公司，在2030年前过渡到100%零排放的货运船只。这一目标将确保航运业在帮助将全球变暖控制在1.5摄氏度以下方面做出应有的贡献，科学家说这是避免气候危机的最严重后果所需要的目标。

媒体联系方式：

Gwen Dobbs, Communications Campaign Director, Pacific Environment, gdobbs@pacificenvironment.org, (202) 329-9295 (Pacific Time)

Shane Reese, Corporate Campaigns Media Director, Stand.earth, shane.reese@stand.earth, (919) 339-3785 (Eastern Time)