PIANC launches Climate Change Declaration
10 December 2019
Inland Navigation Europe is a supporter of the PIANC Navigating a Changing Climate Partnership, and as such is committed to:
- Helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and moving to zero-emission navigation and refueling infrastructure
- Strengthening resilience and adapting to the effects of the changing climate
- Promoting integrated solutions and sustainable solutions
- Disseminating information about climate change issues relevant to navigation infrastructure
Inland waterways are vulnerable to climate change because river navigation depends on precipitation and water levels for its operations.
Recent drought periods as well as floods show how these events disrupt inland navigation activities by imposing restrictions on the amounts of loads transported, increasing the number of vessels to compensate reduced load factors and a shift to less energy-efficient modes, ie undermining its capacity to contribute to transport decarbonisation goals.
Since inland waterways have multiple functions including water supply, energy generation, recreation, biodiversity, and transport, this requires an integrated water policy, in which inland navigation is fully recognised as a valuable water use.
The European Commission will, as part of the EU Green Deal, prepare by 2020-2021 a new Climate Change Adaptation Strategy in which INE wants to see this issue addressed. INE also advocates that climate change adaptation becomes an important element in the revision of the trans-European networks (TEN-T) to make transport infrastructure fit-for-future.
