ABSTRACT
The International Council on Clean Transportation has estimated that ships produced more SO2 soot that is associated with acid rain than all of the world’s cars, trucks, and buses combined. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated that the annual emissions from the world’s merchant fleet have reached 1.2 billion tons of CO2, or nearly 5% of all global emissions of the main greenhouse gas, about twice as much as all airplanes combined. The U.N. agency also estimated that CO2 emissions from ships will rise an additional 30% by 2020, with other pollutants from shipping rising even faster than CO2 emissions. Sulfur and soot emissions, which give rise to lung cancers, acid rain, and respiratory problems, are expected to increase more than 30% by 2020. The health implications of shipping emissions are most acute for Britain and other countries bordering the English Channel, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.
