Reduce Carbon Footprint Call to Shipping

by Ship & Bunker News Team
Wednesday June 19, 2019

Green Arctic lobbyist Clean Arctic Alliance has called on shipping to step up its commitment to reducing its environmental footprint following the news that the permafrost in the Arctic region is thawing at a faster rate than previously thought.

Dr Sian Prior, lead advisor to the organisation, said that change in the Arctic was now in "overdrive".

"The global shipping industry must take responsibility for its contribution," Prior said.

The industry should cut ship speeds to lower carbon dioxide emissions "immediately" and it should reduce black carbon emissions by "switching to cleaner fuels".

"The shipping industry can lead by example by rapidly and efficiently lowering its contribution to this Arctic climate emergency," according to Prior.

A team from the University of Alaska Fairbanks said they were astounded by how quickly a succession of unusually hot summers had destabilized the upper layers of giant subterranean ice blocks that had been frozen solid for millennia.

"What we saw was amazing," Vladimir E. Romanovsky, a professor of geophysics at the university, told Reuters by telephone. "It's an indication that the climate is now warmer than at any time in the last 5,000 or more years."