As a meeting of the International Maritime Organization’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (IMO, MEPC 82) opens today, the Clean Arctic Alliance urges IMO member states to regulate emissions of black carbon from shipping in and near the Arctic, and to ban the use of scrubbers in the region.
Context: 2023 was the fourth warmest Arctic year on record. Meanwhile a recent report shows that Earth may have breached seven of nine planetary boundaries – the latest being ocean acidification, which is having its largest impact in the Arctic and Southern Oceans, while the National Snow and Ice Data Center reports that on September 11, Arctic Sea ice reached the seventh lowest on the satellite record. NSIDC notes that the 18 lowest minimums have all occurred in the last 18 years. According to a paper in Geophysical Research Letters, there has been a significant 24% reduction in Arctic sea ice reflective capacity – due in part to black carbon from gas flaring and other sources – including shipping.
IMO Paper: MEPC 82/7/17: Global Tipping Points – Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Ships
”During MEPC 82 the IMO must finally commit to developing new regulations which would identify fuels suitable for use by international shipping in the polar region, which would deliver an immediate fuel-based reduction in black carbon emissions which impact the Arctic”, said Dr Sian Prior, Lead Advisor to the Clean Arctic Alliance. “With a changing Arctic having detrimental impacts on weather systems around the world, and after more than a decade of deliberation, it is time governments finally started to regulate emissions of short-lived climate forcers such as black carbon from international shipping.”
“Even though this committee has met 21 times in the last decade and a half since agreeing to address emissions of black carbon, the shipping sector continues to emit climate forcing pollutants, without any regulation”, added Prior. “Even worse, emissions of black carbon from ships sailing in and near to the Arctic, which have a disproportionate impact when the particles settle onto snow and ice, have increased by 37% in 10 years. The downward trend in Arctic sea ice since the early 1980s shows that we have lost nearly 10% of the sea extent every decade, which during the month of August, equates to an area roughly six times the size of France.”
“Frustratingly, we have also known for a long time how to start reducing emissions of black carbon – we don’t need new fuels or new technology to kick-start black carbon emissions reductions – we simply need ships to all move to cleaner distillate fuels while operating in and near to the Arctic (north of 60oN latitude) and diesel particulate filters to be installed. This would see reductions of over 90% in black carbon emissions”, said Prior.
The Clean Arctic Alliance is also calling on MEPC 82 to agree to ban the use of exhaust gas cleaning systems (or scrubbers) as an alternative to moving to cleaner fuels when operating in the Arctic. Using a scrubber results in the production of large volumes of wastewater – over 10 gigatons are discharged by ships globally every year. The wastewater is acidic and can be contaminated with heavy metals, nitrates and nitrites and polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and toxic to marine life at very low concentrations. The Clean Arctic Alliance believes that allowing scrubbers to be used by ships to circumvent moving to cleaner fuels is contrary to both the intent of the IMO’s own regulation which says that alternative compliance mechanisms should not impair or damage the environment, human health, property or resources and to the obligations of IMO Member States under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
“In addition to an Arctic ban, “at MEPC 82, IMO Member States must also agree to develop and adopt a resolution calling on shipping operators to immediately stop the release of scrubber discharge wastes in coastal and marine protected areas, critical habitat for endangered species, IMO designated Special Areas and PSSAs and other ecologically sensitive areas”, said Eelco Leemans, Clean Arctic Alliance Technical Advisor.
“Scrubbers are the shipping industry’s attempt to continue using Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO), the dirtiest of all fuels, which should play no part in the future of shipping. In fact scrubbers are an obstacle in IMO’s climate ambitions. The short term solution is that ships switch to distillate fuel, whereby scrubbers are not needed”.
Other matters to be discussed and agreed at MEPC 82 include the designation of two new Emission Control Areas (ECAs) – in Canadian Arctic waters and in the Norwegian Sea. These were given preliminary approval at the last meeting and should be adopted this week.
“The Clean Arctic Alliance strongly encourages the IMO to designate these two new emissions control areas”, said Carolina Silva, Shipping Policy Officer at ZERO. “If these ECAs are created in Canadian Arctic waters and in the Norwegian Sea, ships will be required to reduce their sulphur and nitrogen emissions (SOx and NOx) by using cleaner fuels with a co-benefit being a reduction in black carbon emissions. Although ECAs do not fully address the concern about black carbon emissions, their role in reducing SOx and NOx emissions is also important both for the Arctic and in terms of human health and can pave the way for further ECA proposals to come forward.”
Other work just commencing at MEPC 82 will be the revision of the IMO’s carbon intensity indicator (CII). The CII is one component of a suite of measures that are being – revised in the case of the CII – and negotiated in the case of a global fuel standard and a carbon levy, which together will achieve the goals of the IMO’s greenhouse gas strategy and put shipping on an unambiguously 1.5oC compliant pathway – provided that the measures are sufficiently ambitious. Work to revise the CII will commence at MEPC 82, and must incorporate energy efficiency measures such as improving the operational efficiency of ships and reducing the amount of fuel used that deliver significant benefits for the prevention and reduction of underwater noise and ocean health more broadly, along with an effective enforcement mechanism to sure that emission reductions are reliable and real. The work needs to be concluded in 2025.
“It’s urgent to prioritise solutions for the shipping sector which are at the intersection of climate, biodiversity and pollution. Working to eliminate black carbon emissions and scrubber wastewater, and reducing underwater radiated noise in the Arctic all contribute to addressing shipping at this nexus and responding to the triple planetary crisis”, said Andrew Dumbrille, North American Advisor to the Clean Arctic Alliance. “We’re calling for a new task force to be initiated at MEPC 82 which would design a co-benefits solutions space at the IMO, creating a tide to raise all ships and accelerate the sustainability of the marine sector.”
Source: Clean Arctic Alliance
