{"id":1536,"date":"2019-11-14T13:35:51","date_gmt":"2019-11-14T11:35:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=1536"},"modified":"2021-10-03T09:24:30","modified_gmt":"2021-10-03T06:24:30","slug":"the-benefits-of-reducing-air-pollution-due-to-restrictions-on-maritime-fuels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=1536","title":{"rendered":"The benefits of reducing air pollution due to restrictions on maritime fuels"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Air pollution remains one of the most sensitive and painful environmental\nissues. According to a study published by the World Health Organization and the\nOECD (2010) environmental air pollution was\nresponsible for about 500000 premature deaths in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An epidemiological study published in Corbett et al 2007 by C. Wang, J.\nJ.  Corbett    titled \n“The  costs  and \nbenefits  of  reducing \nSO2<\/sub>  emissions  from \nships  in  The \nUS  West  Coastal \nWaters” (https<\/a>:\/\/<\/a>www<\/a>.<\/a>sciencedirect<\/a>.<\/a>com<\/a>)  pointed out\nthat  around 60000 premature deaths\noccurring near the coasts of Europe, East Asia and South Asia could be\nattributed to an increase in emissions exposure from maritime transport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Thanos S. Chonthrogiannis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a9The law of intellectual property\nis prohibited in any way unlawful use\/appropriation of this article, with heavy\ncivil and criminal penalties for the infringer.<\/em><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the most important reports that manages air pollution management in\nEurope is the EU directive (2016\/2284\/EU) which defines the emission ceilings\nof its member countries for air pollution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, this directive defines and complies with the objectives-limits on the specific issue that member countries should respect throughout the period 2020-2030. Furthermore, the emission control strategies in the various sectors of economic activity such as industry, agricultural sector, road transport, etc. are also defined in this directive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Ship pumping ballast water <\/strong>
Photo by US Coast Guard, licensed Public Domain<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Although international maritime navigation is an important pollutant\nemission in ambient air it is not included in the EU above directive.\nIndicatively of the “pollutant intensity” of shipping is the fact\nthat while shipping in its entirety consumes 3% of global energy, shipping is\nresponsible for 12% of pollutants in SOx\/NOx-suspended particles. It\nessentially causes an environmental charge to almost four times the size of the\nenergy it uses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The benefits of the restrictions of pollutants in shipping fuel<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the study  \nprepared  by  the \nEU, namely    ECAMED:  A \nTechnical  Feasibility  Study \nfor  the  Implementation  of \nan  Emission  Control \nArea  (ECA)  in \nthe  Mediterranean  Sea \n(11\/01\/2019),  with  the \nimposition  of restrictions  on marine fuel (essentially restrictions on\nemissions of SOx-oxides of Sulphur type) , there will be about 4100 fewer\npremature deaths per year from 2030 onwards in the countries of the\nMediterranean Sea basin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on this study, the World Maritime Organisation requires that the\nmaximum Sulphur content in marine fuels be drastically reduced (from 3.5% to\n0.5%) starting next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But issuing such a requirement does not mean anything to the participating\nshipping companies since they will not have any consequences in not applying\nthe requirement of the World Shipping Organization. In our opinion, the most\neffective policy will be the adoption by all the states of the planet bordering\nby the sea to adopt and implement in practice a decision similar to the decision\ntaken by other Northern European countries, transforming the Channel (English),\nthe North Sea and the Baltic Sea into an ECA-Emissions  Control \nArea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Proper Policy<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Emission Control Areas (ECAs) or Sulfur Emission Control Areas (SECAs) are sea areas in which stricter controls were established to minimize airborne emissions from ships as defined by Annex VI of the 1997 MARPOL Protocol. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Parties to the MARPOL 73\/78 convention on marine pollution<\/strong>
Photo by Jrockey, licensed Public Domain<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

As of 2011 there were specific number of existing ECAs worldwide: The\nNorth Sea, the English Channel, the North America ECA (including most of the US\nand Canadian coasts), the US Caribbean, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.\nOn the other hand, possible future ECAs are Mexico coasts, Japan coasts and\nMediterranean Coasts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The use of marine fuels with a Sulphur content greater than 0.1% is\nprohibited within ECA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The implementation of ECAs worldwide is an innovative decision to protect\nthe environment despite the initial strong reactions of the world shipping\ncommunity for a possible increase in the fares of ships and thus an increase in\nthe prices of goods transported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ECAs led to environmental protection and functioned as a forced change\nin the direction of development and research in alternative marine fuels, while\nuntil now they have succeeded in improving the environmental footprint of\nshipping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pioneering prospect for the Mediterranean Sea<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In December 2019 the 22 Mediterranean countries  and \naccording  to the Convention  for \nthe  Protection  of \nthe  Marine  Environment \nand  the  Coastal \nRegion  of  the \nMediterranean   (simply  referred \nas  the  Barcelona \nConvention)  will  meet \nto    decide  whether its members will  initiate the transformation of the\nMediterranean Sea into an ECA zone, \naccording to the standards of other countries including Northern Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Italy, France, Spain (EU) have already made public their common decision to\npromote this prospect for the Mediterranean Sea. The EU and the Commission\nshould push all other member countries to agree on this prospect and should\npush Greece that is a leader in global shipping, because the interests affected\nare much greater in this member country, to co-sign this pioneering\nperspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All shipowners should understand that by implementing the decision to\ntransform the Mediterranean Sea into ECA they will achieve long-term savings in\ntheir operating costs while obtaining a comparative economic advantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, the Mediterranean Sea states will need to invest in the\nnecessary infrastructures so that the transition to the new era is done in a\nsmooth manner with the minimum economic cost in each case both for the market\nand for the societies of these states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The EU cannot vaccination around the world that the European economy is\nbased on innovation and environmentally sustainable development, and on the\nother hand its member countries do not consent to this truly pioneering\ndecision that will help in addition to Mediterranean Sea and its peoples and\nthe whole planet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Air pollution remains one of the most sensitive and painful environmental issues. According to a study published by the World Health Organization and the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[620,2955],"tags":[1244,1241,1238,1245,1225,1240,1237,1242,1239,1236,1243],"class_list":["post-1536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-energy","tag-barcelona-convention","tag-eca","tag-maritime-fuel","tag-marpol-protocol","tag-mediterranean-sea","tag-nox","tag-oecd","tag-seca","tag-sox","tag-who","tag-wmo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1536"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6267,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1536\/revisions\/6267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}