Climate Liberation celebrates ending of Pacific Explorer NZ cruises as a win for environment, people, and climate.

The P & O Pacific Explorer, which operates out of New Zealand for part of each year, will be retired in February 2025. According to Josh Weinstein, CEO of Carnival Corporation owner of the Pacific Explorer, this is due to the high cost of regulation. Friends of the Earth gave both P & O and Carnival Cruise Lines an overall rating of F in their most recent Cruise Ship Report Card. This rated cruise companies on factors including sewage treatment, air pollution reduction, and water quality compliance.

“Cruise ships’ international greenhouse gas emissions are already totally unregulated, and they dodge virtually all tax and labour regulations. So when Carnival Corporation CEO Josh Weinstein blames this decline of cruising on too much regulation, he's saying that this business is only profitable if it’s based on even more aggressively trashing our environment and our well-being, in a way that we wouldn’t put up with from any domestic company,” said Climate Liberation Aotearoa spokesperson Michael Apathy. “That’s why we say good riddance to Carnival, to P&O, and to their cruise ships. If other cruise companies want to keep basing their business model on exploitation, we will help to see them off too!”

Climate Liberation Aotearoa is campaigning to get international shipping and aviation greenhouse gas emissions regulated by central government, to stop subsidies to the cruise ship industry, and for the banning of cruise ships from ecologically sensitive areas. The Climate Change Commission is making recommendations later this year on whether New Zealand should increase regulation on the cruise industry by including international emissions in emission reduction targets and plans. The Commission has noted that major economies, including the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America are moving in this direction by setting domestic targets for international emissions and putting in place policies to achieve them.

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