As a meeting of the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Pollution Prevention and Response sub-committee (PPR 12, 27-31 January) gets underway next week in London, the Clean Arctic Alliance called for the international shipping body to reduce the impact on the Arctic from shipping’s black carbon emissions, by urgently agreeing to regulation which will identifying cleaner fuels more suitable for use in the region, and to immediately stop the release of scrubber discharge wastes in coastal, protected and sensitive areas.
“We call on IMO Member States to urgently agree to the development of a black carbon regulation in MARPOL Annex VI which requires that only polar fuels can be used in and near to the Arctic, and to a resolution to prevent ocean pollution in protected and sensitive seas”, said Dr Sian Prior, Lead Advisor to the Clean Arctic Alliance. “With the Arctic climate crisis rapidly approaching the point where changes such as the loss of sea ice, melting of the Greenland ice sheet, slowing down of ocean circulation patterns will become self-sustaining, it is a travesty that emissions of black carbon – a potent short-lived climate pollutant, and ocean pollution are being allowed to increase in the region where they are having the greatest impact.”
“It is imperative that this week, IMO member states make progress on efforts to regulate emissions of black carbon from ships in the Arctic and endorse the concept of ‘polar fuels’”, said Bill Hemmings, Black Carbon Advisor to the Clean Arctic Alliance. “The IMO must agree that only distillate-grade DMA marine fuels or other fuels which result in similar or even lower levels of black carbon emissions will replace all residual use, and are therefore suitable for operating in and near the Arctic.”
Black Carbon and the Arctic
In a paper submitted to the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee in 2024, (MEPC 82/5/2*: Regulating Black Carbon emissions from international shipping impacting the Arctic) NGOs called on IMO Member States to consider the development of a new regulation for inclusion in MARPOL Annex VI (the main international treaty addressing air pollution prevention requirements from ships) which would identify suitable polar fuels, for example distillate fuels, such DMA or DMZ, to deliver an immediate fuel-based reduction in black carbon emissions from international shipping impacting the Arctic. The paper develops the concept of “polar fuels” discussed previously at PPR 11 and sets out the fuel characteristics that would distinguish polar fuels from residual fuels and thus lead to fuel-based reductions in ship Black Carbon emissions if mandated for use in and near the Arctic.
Black carbon is a short-lived climate pollutant, produced by the incomplete burning of fossil fuels, with an impact more than three thousand times that of CO2 over a 20 year period. It makes up around one-fifth of international shipping’s climate impact. Not only does it contribute to warming while in the atmosphere, black carbon accelerates melting if deposited onto snow and ice – hence it has a disproportionate impact when released in and near to the Arctic. The melting snow and ice exposes darker areas of land and water and these dark patches then absorb further heat from the sun and the reflective capacity of the planet’s polar ice caps is severely reduced. More heat in the polar systems – results in increased melting. This is the loss of the albedo effect. Recently in its 6th Assessment Report, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) doubled the estimate of the warming potential of black carbon on snow and ice due to a better understanding of its warming impact.
Declines in sea ice extent and volume are leading to a burgeoning social and environmental crisis in the Arctic, while cascading changes are impacting global climate and ocean circulation. Scientists have high confidence that processes are nearing points beyond which rapid and irreversible changes on the scale of multiple human generations are possible. Scientists say it is now too late to save summer Arctic sea ice, and research has shown that “preparations need to be made for the increased extreme weather across the northern hemisphere that is likely to occur as a result.”
Black carbon also has a negative impact on human health, and recent research has found black carbon particles in the body tissues of foetuses, following inhalation by pregnant mothers.
The need to reduce emissions of black carbon because of both the climate and health impacts has been long recognised. On land, considerable effort has been made to ban dirtier fuels in power stations, to install diesel particulate filters on land-based transport, and to improve the burning of dry wood – all to reduce emissions of black carbon and improve air quality. However, at sea the same efforts have not yet been made.
Scrubbers
PPR 12 will look at the evaluation and harmonization of rules and guidance on the discharge of discharge water from EGCS into the aquatic environment.
“During PPR 12, IMO member states must agree to the development of a resolution that will call on shipping operators to immediately stop the release of scrubber discharge wastes in marine protected areas, habitats important for endangered wildlife, and other ecologically sensitive areas such as the Arctic”, said Eelco Leemans, Technical Advisor to the Clean Arctic Alliance. “The use of scrubbers circumvents the need to use cleaner fuels, so in the Arctic scrubbers should be banned immediately, and in the longer term a global ban on scrubbers is needed. In the meantime national maritime administrations should ban the discharge of scrubber waste water within their domestic (or territorial) waters and stop approving scrubbers as an alternative compliance method for ships registered under their flags.”
Source: Clean Arctic Alliance
