Cruise ship pollution in Europe
Cruise ship pollution in Europe is a major part of the
Background
Modern cruise ships evolved from
Most polluted port cities and countries
In all European port cities, people are suffering from air pollution because of the booming [cruise] industry.
According to a 2019 study by
- Barcelona, Spain: 32.8 tonnes of SOx[1]
- Palma de Mallorca, Spain: 28 tonnes of SOx[1]
- Venice, Italy: 27.5 tonnes of SOx[1]
- Southampton (including Marchwood), United Kingdom: 27.1 tonnes of SOx[1]
- Civitavecchia (near Rome), Italy: 22.3 tonnes of SOx[1]
- Piraeus (near Athens), Greece: 21 tonnes of SOx[1]
- Funchal (on Madeira), Portugal: 18 tonnes of SOx[1]
- Livorno, Italy: 16.3 tonnes of SOx[1]
- Lisbon, Portugal: 16.1 tonnes of SOx[1]
- Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain: 15.6 tonnes of SOx[1]
The following European countries have been most exposed to air pollution by cruise ships (data from 2017):[note 2]
- Spain: 14,496 tonnes of SOx[1]
- Italy: 13,895 tonnes of SOx[1]
- Greece: 7,674 tonnes of SOx[1]
- France: 5,950 tonnes of SOx[1]
- Norway: 5,261 tonnes of SOx[1]
Fuel
The most commonly used fuel type for cruise ships is so-called
A 2018 study carried out by
Waste streams
Aside from air pollution, cruise ships produce various
Risks
Human health
Sulfur oxide (SOx) emissions form
Aside from the locals, measuring has shown that passengers themselves are also exposed to heightened concentrations of nitrogen oxides during their voyage.[6] For example, Canadian environmental researchers, which had secretly conducted air quality tests at various times and places aboard four Carnival Corporation cruises, reported in 2019 that they 'found that levels of ultra-fine particulate matter at the back of the ship behind the smokestacks while the ship was moving that were comparable to some of the world's most polluted cities like Beijing and Santiago.' Carnival dismissed the claims as 'completely ridiculous', asserting its ships 'meet or exceed every requirement'. A University of British Columbia scientist also questioned some of the report's more drastic claims, but agreed with the group's general conclusions about cruise shipping from an air pollution and climate change perspective.[11]
Environment
The emissions contribute to ocean acidification and soil acidification. Nitrogen oxides also stimulate particle and ozone formation.[1]
Damage to buildings
In addition to causing the third-worst air pollution in any port city in Europe,[3] cruise ships passing through the Giudecca Canal damage building foundations of historical Venice, a World Heritage Site, as well as blocking the view of inhabitants and other tourists.[12] A week after the 12 January 2012 Costa Concordia disaster, UNESCO urged Venetian authorities to restrict the future access of cruise ships to Venice and other Italian ports with vulnerable cultural historic architecture.[13] That year, over 600 passenger ships docked in Venice, about 300 of which were categorised as mega-cruises (featuring thousands of passengers and ten decks), together carrying between 1.6 and 2 million passengers.[12][14] In subsequent years, the city of Venice, for whom tourism is of critical importance, tried to reach a compromise with cruise lines, but in August 2014 the Italian government interfered by prohibiting ships surpassing the weight of 96,000 tonnes from getting near the historic centre in 2015.[12] Plans to divert a third of the cruises were announced by Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli in August 2019, after MSC Opera crashed into a smaller river cruise ship and a quay in Venice on 2 June 2019, injuring five people; however, Toninelli's plans were criticised as unrealistic by activists and other politicians.[15]
Regulations
International treaties
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) is the United Nations' agency for the regulation of international shipping, founded in 1948. The IMO's International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, better known as MARPOL 73/78 (effective since 1983, and later expanded), set the most important international standard in containing the environmental pollution of shipping. Amongst other things, it prohibited any kind of dumping within three nautical miles of a coastline, and set limits on sulfur and nitrogen oxide emissions from ships.[16]
In international law, the maximum sulfur oxide concentration in cruise ship emissions at full sea is 0.5% from 1 January 2020 onwards.[7][17] This standard (sometimes called "IMO 2020") was recommended by a United Nations subcommittee in 2008, and adopted by the IMO in 2016.[17] Previously, the maximum concentration at full sea was set at 3.5%.[7][17] Since the most commonly used heavy fuel oil was still deemed to have an average sulfur content of around 2.7% as of July 2019, this was a major shift in oil market history, and ship companies found in violation of the new regulation could face huge penalties when caught by authorities.[17]
The Ballast Water Management Convention, aimed at preventing problems such as the dispersal of invasive species, entered into force on 8 September 2017, and will fully apply on 8 September 2024.
However, shipping falls outside many international agreements such as the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the 2015 Paris Agreement, and ships are also excluded from many national regulations because they move between countries, often through international waters.[8] These aspects make it legally difficult to assign responsibility to a particular government authority, and practically difficult to check how much (cruise) ships emit and to enforce sanctions in case of violations.[8]
Emission Control Areas
Docking restrictions
While docking, berthing or mooring in populated places for several hours, cruise ships such as the Harmony of the Seas are required to use auxiliary engines that burn low sulfur fuel, or use abatement technologies, in order to reduce the amount of air pollution they cause to the detriment of local inhabitants.[19] However, critics say these measures are not enough to ensure their health.[19]
Activists have pushed for cruises to be using electricity from the shore (known as "shore power" or "cold ironing"[20]) during docking hours, but cruise lines have resisted this alternative.[19][4] Shore power is already common in the United States, Canada and some European ports (however, as of April 2019, only two European ports are able to generate enough electricity to fully-power cruise ships with their engines turned off[7]), and Southampton planned to become the first port in Britain to introduce it in 2020 as well.[20] Disadvantages from shore power include the drain on mains electricity and the required financial investment in installing the necessary infrastructure.[20] According to CLIA, 28% of cruises used shore power in April 2019.[7] The European Commission has ordered all ports in the European Union to make shore power available by 2025, unless there is no demand or the costs are higher than the environmental benefits.[7]
Court cases
In 2016, Princess Cruises (a British-American subsidiary of Carnival Corporation that operates in Europe and North America) was condemned by the Court of Miami to pay 40 million U.S. dollars in damages for illegally dumping oil at sea in order to cut waste disposal costs. Initially, it was sued only for dumping 4,227 gallons (16,000 litres) of oil-contaminated waste about 20 miles (32 kilometres) off the coast of England on 26 August 2013 using a "magic pipe" from the Caribbean Princess. But later, authorities discovered that Princess Cruises had been committing this illegal pollution since 2005, and four other ships were found guilty of the same crime, and that onboard sensors were manipulated to avoid detecting seawater pollution.[21][22] For violation of the probation terms of 2016, Carnival and Princess were ordered to pay an additional $20 million penalty in 2019. The new violations included discharging plastic into waters in the Bahamas, falsifying records, and interfering with court supervision.[23]
In July 2018, for the first time in the French Mediterranean, the captain of a cruise ship, MS Azura, stood trial for breaking fuel emission limits in the port of Marseille.[10]
Other solutions
Emissions and waste reduction
There are also
Electric engines
It's possible to have ships run on electricity alone, especially for shorter distances such as between Sweden and Denmark.[6] Electric engines do not emit any noxious gases (provided the electricity is clean), are silent and thus eliminate the noise pollution caused by internal combustion engines, and they require much less maintenance.[26] On the other hand, electric batteries are relatively heavy, generate less power and speed overall, and need to be charged often, so they are less suitable over longer distances.[26]
To reduce electricity consumption, some modern ships only use LED lamps.[24]
Relocating terminals
The relocation of cruise ship passenger terminals away from densely populated areas to near surrounding towns or villages has been proposed in ports such as Venice, Antwerp and
See also
- Cruise ship pollution in the United States
- Environmental impact of aviation
- Phase-out of fossil fuel vehicles
- Regulation of ship pollution in the United States
- Short-haul flight ban
Notes
- ^ The 2017 study's geographical scope was the EEZs of all EU member states (including the UK), Norway (including Svalbard), Iceland, Albania, Montenegro and Denmark's Greenland, Bornholm, and Faroe Islands.[1]
- ^ 'Spain, Italy, Greece, France, and Norway are the most exposed countries to cruise ship air pollution in Europe.'[1]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Faig Abbasov, ed. (June 2019). "One Corporation to Pollute Them All. Luxury cruise air emissions in Europe" (PDF). Transport & Environment. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
- ^ Transport & Environment. 4 June 2019. Archived from the originalon 13 July 2021. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
- ^ a b c d Stephen Burgen (7 June 2019). "Barcelona port is worst in Europe for cruise ship air pollution". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
- ^ a b c d e f "How bad for the environment are cruise ships?". Deutsche Welle. YouTube. 4 April 2013. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
- ^ "Watch a Cruise Ship Pollute as Much as 13 Million Cars—in One Day". Take Part. Friends of the Earth. 28 April 2015. Retrieved 22 September 2020.
- ^ a b c d e f g Barbara Debusschere (2 September 2018). "Slechts één cruiseschip ter wereld is niet slecht voor de gezondheid". De Morgen (in Dutch). Retrieved 20 September 2020.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Peter van Ammelrooy (24 April 2019). "Van 'smeerpoets' naar 'milieuvriendelijk': het cruiseschip werkt hard aan een groener imago". de Volkskrant (in Dutch). Retrieved 21 September 2020.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Insight: Ship Pollution". TRT World. YouTube. 19 May 2017. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
- ^ "Mind the methane gap".
- ^ a b c d Angelique Chrisafis (6 July 2018). "'I don't want ships to kill me': Marseille fights cruise liner pollution". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
- ^ Renée Filippone (25 January 2019). "Cruise ship air quality as bad as 'world's most polluted cities'". CBC News. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
- ^ a b c "Unesco: grote cruiseschepen schadelijk voor Venetië". Trouw (in Dutch). 23 January 2012. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
- ^ "Weg met de 'wolkenkrabbers van de zee'". De Morgen (in Dutch). 17 August 2014. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
In 2012 meerden er meer dan zeshonderd passagiersschepen aan. Een driehonderdtal past in de categorie megacruiseschip, met duizenden passagiers en een tiental dekken.
- ^ Philippe Ridet (20 September 2013). "A Venise, la multiplication des paquebots géants menace la lagune". Le Monde (in French). Retrieved 21 September 2020.
- ^ a b Angela Giuffrida (8 August 2019). "Venice cruise ships could be rerouted from city centre next month". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
- ^ Leo Hickman (17 January 2012). "What impact will the Costa Concordia disaster have on the environment?". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
- ^ a b c d Sam Meredith (15 July 2019). "The 'biggest change in oil market history' is less than six months away". CNBC. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
- ^ a b Marc Schoetens (2 August 2019). "Antwerpse activisten zetten yogamatjes in tegen cruiseschepen". De Morgen (in Dutch). Retrieved 21 September 2020.
- ^ a b c John Vidal (21 May 2016). "The world's largest cruise ship and its supersized pollution problem". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
- ^ a b c "Southampton Port 'on course' for cruise ship shore power first". BBC News. 29 December 2019. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
- ^ "The $40m 'magic pipe': Princess Cruises given record fine for dumping oil at sea". The Guardian. Associated Press. 2 December 2016. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
- ^ "Milieuboete voor cruiseschepen Princess met illegale 'toverpijp'". Algemeen Dagblad (in Dutch). Associated Press. 1 December 2016. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
- ^ "Carnival Cruises to Pay $20 Million in Pollution and Cover-Up Case". New York Times. 4 June 2019. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
- ^ a b Leon van Heel (4 November 2019). "Dit is de cruisereus MSC Grandiosa: heel groot en een klein beetje groen". Algemeen Dagblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 21 September 2019.
- ^ Wil Crisp (25 October 2019). "Thousands of ships fitted with 'cheat devices' to divert poisonous pollution into sea". The Independent. Retrieved 24 September 2020.
- ^ a b Noël van Bemmel (4 September 2020). "Met elektrisch varen gaat het nog niet zo hard. Waarom is dat?". de Volkskrant (in Dutch). Retrieved 21 September 2020.
- ^ Michiel Couzy (29 June 2019). "Zoek het uit met je terminal". Het Parool (in Dutch). Retrieved 21 September 2020.