The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has agreed a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in maritime transport by the year 2030 compared to 2008. The pact is also completed with a goal to achieve a balance of zero emissions (so that gases released into the atmosphere are neutralized or offset by sinks) by "around the year 2050", as decided by the meeting. Environmental organizations have argued in this regard that the objectives are poorly defined and insufficient.
Activists defend that the goal for the year 2030 should be a 50% reduction in emissions; and by the year 2050, the sector should have achieved a balance of zero emissions. The groups also consider that what was agreed is not aligned with the goal of stopping the increase in temperatures to a maximum of 1.5ºC established in the Paris Agreement.
Although this treaty aims to reduce emissions globally, one of the biggest motivations for organizations like the Clean Arctic Alliance is to save the Arctic; a task that will become impossible if the temperature threshold set in the aforementioned agreement is exceeded.
"The Arctic, one of the main regulators of the world's climate, is warming up to four times faster than the planet as a whole," explains the Clean Arctic Alliance, an environmental group made up of 20 non-profit organizations, including which is the Spanish Ecodes.
The key to understanding the relationship between Arctic conservation and emissions from shipping lies in black carbon, or soot; whose residue that arises after the burning of heavy fuels in ships. Black carbon is released in two states: gas and solid. As a gas, it contributes to the greenhouse effect when released into the atmosphere; and as a solid particle, it accelerates melting by being deposited on top of snow and ice, explains the Clean Arctic Alliance.
Melting snow and ice expose darker areas of land and water, lose their ability to reflect sunlight, and absorb more heat; and more heat in polar systems translates into increased melting. For all these reasons, the organization warns that black carbon "has a great impact when it is released in the Arctic and near it."
"Black carbon represents about a fifth of the climate impact of international shipping," the organization states, adding that its impact on climate change can be considered greater in the short term than that of carbon dioxide (CO₂), considered the main greenhouse gas, due to this double diffusion in gaseous and solid form.
"We expected states to agree this week that any measures to reduce black carbon emissions would have to apply to all ships operating throughout the Arctic and beyond. Instead, the only documents and comments came from the environmental groups," says Sian Prior, senior adviser to the Clean Arctic Alliance.
Emissions from European shipping grew 3% last year, as the industry approaches pre-pandemic levels, and have reached their highest in the last three years, according to the European Federation for Transport and Environment. (T
The ships that visited European ports emitted almost 130 million tons of CO2 in the year 2022 (more than half of what Spain emitted as a whole in the same year). In addition, cargo ships were responsible for most of the emissions, according to the report by T
Clean Arctic Alliance proposes a transition from heavy fuels to diesel for shipping. Prior predicts that they "would see up to an 80% reduction in black carbon emissions, depending on the engine, when switching from heavy fuels to diesel fuels. He adds that if only ships operating in the Arctic made this transition, the measure "It will translate into a reduction of about 44% of black carbon emissions."
In short, both the Clean Arctic Alliance and the European Federation for Transport and the Environment (T
