As the Port of Durban grapples with severe backlogs, leading to a crisis of major concern to the local shipping industry, a different crisis of monumental proportions is playing out in the Panama Canal where climate change is threatening the long-term viability of the shipping route.
Most severely affected is the US shipping industry, with 40% of US traffic moving on the route.
VP operations told CBS News that the US represented two-thirds of traffic to or from the Canal.
And as the drought persists there are concerns that Christmas goods will be delayed as shipping lines are forced to seek out longer alternative routes – which is likely to increase costs for the consumer.
Panama is one of the wettest countries in the world but this year’s unprecedented drought has seen water levels so low that the authority has placed a limit on the number of vessels moving through the Canal - from 36 to 24 per day. Some vessels are carrying 40% less cargo and are forced to slow down so that they don’t hit the bottom.
A Canal spokesman explained to the news channel that the Canal needed two and a half times the amount of water that a city the size of New York uses every day. But the severe drought is drying up the lakes that feed the Canal, which is trying to store and reuse as much water as possible and is considering diverting water from other rivers.
It is on record as the driest October since 1950.
The industry needs little more evidence of the critical importance of cutting carbon emissions – and doing so with urgency.
