Shipping (COP 14)
In another earlier blog, I mentioned the sudden collapse in sea trade resulting from the economic meltdown. I was especially interested, therefore, in an assessment given by the EU of the impact of shipping on climate change. It drew on widely accepted research that shows shipping to have a net cooling effect on the average global temperature. This is because the fuels used by ships emit disproportionately high levels of SO2, NOx and black carbon (soot) – which have a global cooling effect. So, presumably, a decline in shipping may actually accelerate global warming? To be fair, this is likely to be heavily outweighed by the reduction in CO2 emissions which will result from the economic downturn.
But if it looks as though rapid development of the shipping industry could be a positive climate offset, think again. First, the atmospheric lifetime of SO2 and NOx is a tiny fraction of CO2, giving only temporary and short-lived relief; and, secondly, these pollutants have a range of other negative environmental and health impacts. For those reasons alone, we will see a progressive tightening of regulations to clean up these very fuels.
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