Europe’s port cities ‘choking on toxic air’ from cruise ships

Cruise ships pumped four times more harmful sulphuric gases into the atmosphere in Europe than passenger vehicles did last year, according to new research showing air quality is deteriorating despite emissions limits and industry pledges to go green.

A total of 509 tonnes of sulphur oxides were emitted by the 218 cruise vessels in operation across Europe last year, up from 465 tonnes of emissions linked to the industry in 2019, the last year of normal activity before the pandemic, according to a report by climate lobby group Transport & Environment.

A 0.5 per cent cap on sulphur content in marine fuels introduced in 2020 by the International Maritime Organization has helped to cut sulphur emissions per tonne of fuel consumed. But dozens of extra cruise ships have been added to the main operators’ fleets since 2019, which has increased total emissions. This is despite passenger volumes in Europe not yet rebounding to pre-pandemic levels.

Sulphur oxides have been proven to cause acid rain and can aggravate respiratory conditions such as asthma and emphysema. Barcelona ranks as the worst-affected port city in Europe for sulphur emissions, with a total of 805 port calls by cruise ships leading to 18 tonnes of sulphur oxides being released into the atmosphere last year.

The research also showed that since 2019 emissions of nitrous oxides and PM2.5 particulate matter, which are both linked to respiratory diseases and lung cancer, had increased by 18 per cent and 25 per cent respectively.

Constance Dijkstra, shipping campaigner at Transport & Environment, said the research showed that major European port cities were “again choking on toxic air pollution from cruise ships”. She also warned that the focus on improving air pollution was “dangerously slipping toward solutions that are good for the air but are disastrous for biodiversity and climate change”.

Shipping leaves trails of nitrogen dioxide pollution across the Mediterranean Sea

Although cruise ships account for a fraction of the emissions linked to the wider global shipping industry, the sector has come under fire from regulators, politicians and activists who are pushing for it to clean up its environmental record.

A host of European port cities, including Palma de Mallorca, Marseille, Dubrovnik and Santorini, have placed restrictions on the industry in recent years. Most notably, Venice banned cruise ships weighing more than 25,000 tonnes from its lagoon to protect its Unesco world heritage site status in 2021. Emissions of sulphur oxides fell by 80 per cent in Venice as a result, according to the research.

In Barcelona, the outgoing leftwing mayor Ada Colau has led a crusade against cruise ships and urged the Catalan regional government to restrict the number allowed in its port. All the contenders to replace her — who are haggling over potential governing coalitions after an election last month — agree that cruise tourism must be reformed to do the city less harm.

Xavier Trias, a pro-business politician who has said “we need to grow in quality not quantity”, is mostly likely to become the new mayor. He has taken aim at a particular bugbear: transit cruise ships that stop for just a few hours in the middle of their journeys, just enough time for passengers to flock to sites such as the Sagrada Família cathedral and back again. “They bring nothing,” he said.

You are seeing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is most likely due to being offline or JavaScript being disabled in your browser.

Marie-Caroline Laurent, director-general of cruise trade group CLIA, said the industry was “strongly committed to improving its sustainability”. She said companies were adhering to emissions controls and investing in shoreside charging technology, which removes the need for ships to burn fuel while in port.

Carnival, the world’s biggest cruise operator, had the highest sulphur emissions of any operator, with its fleet of 63 ships emitting 43 per cent more sulphur oxides than all of Europe’s passenger vehicles.

The Florida-headquartered company was fined $20mn in 2019 by US prosecutors over environmental violations. It said it was the only major cruise company to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions since 2011 despite increasing its fleet capacity by 30 per cent.

“While we’re incredibly proud of the progress we’ve made so far, we understand there is still more work to be done,” it added.

But Bryan Comer, head of the International Council on Clean Transportation’s marine programme, said the industry’s efforts to improve its environmental record were “abysmal”. “It seems like every step they have taken to convince the public and shareholders that they are taking sustainability seriously has actually made matters worse,” he added.

You are seeing a snapshot of an interactive graphic. This is most likely due to being offline or JavaScript being disabled in your browser.

The IMO’s sulphur cap led to an increase in the use of so-called scrubbers, which remove sulphur from the ship’s exhaust by collecting the air pollution and disposing of it at sea — to the detriment of marine life.

Scrubbers were also behind a significant jump in particulate matter emissions from cruise ships, according to Transport & Environment, which has called for a ban on the cleaning system in certain ports to be extended to all European waters.

Campaigner Dijkstra criticised the cruise sector’s strategy of using liquefied natural gas instead of heavy oil fuel to reduce air pollution, as engines fuelled by LNG leak unburned methane — a greenhouse gas that has a warming impact 80 times greater than carbon dioxide. Around two-fifths of cruise companies’ order books are LNG-powered vessels.

Instead, the sector should focus on the development of new fuel sources such as hydrogen, said Comer of the ICCT. “The cruise industry is one where you actually could invest in these new technologies,” he added. “They should be protecting the people at the ports of call, they shouldn’t be charging into a city and harming people with no consequences.”