The impact of international shipping on European air quality and climate forcing

John van Aardenne (EEA), Augustin Colette, Bart Degraeuwe, Pieter Hammingh, Mar Viana and Ina de Vlieger (ETC/ACM).

Joint TFEIP/EIONET Meeting (14th – 15th May 2013), Istanbul, Turkey

What will you find in the report

• registration of ships, international maritime law and international and European environmental legislation (Chapter 2);

• monitoring and modelling of maritime fuel consumption and resulting emissions (Chapter 3);

• past and future trends of air pollutants and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from shipping (Chapter 4);

• attribution of air quality problems to emissions from the maritime transport sector by evaluating atmospheric observations and modelling data (Chapter 5);

• understanding the climate forcing characteristics of ship emissions and atmospheric modelling (Chapter 6).

Selection of conclusions

A consistent, European wide approach for monitoring, reporting and verification of both GHGs and air pollutant emissions from the shipping sector is key to address its contribution to climate change and air quality in tandem.

There is a strong need for further harmonization of emissions information from the shipping sector across Europe.

Emissions from maritime transport in European waters constitute a significant share of worldwide ship emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases.

Shipping emissions can contribute significantly to local air quality problems in Europe, but the pan‑European knowledge and observation base needs to be improved to provide a more complete picture.

At the global scale, studies shows that present‑day ship emissions of both air pollutants and GHGs and their contribution to direct and indirectclimate forcing indicate a net cooling effect.

For the EU, (EMSA) collects theAIS data for SafeSeaNet.

For the Baltic Sea, theHelsinki Commission (HELCOM) collects theAIS data.

Commercial ship-tracking initiatives

There are different geographic areas where the EU or some of its MS have interests or responsibilities.These range from large maritime areas such as the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea and the BlackSea, to smaller national areas like the 200- and 12-mile zones.

The 12-mile zone of a state is a belt which extends 12 nm or 22 km from the mean low-water mark. This area is regarded as sovereign territory of thestate.

The Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is an area which stretches 200 nm or 370 km from the coast lineof a state. In this zone the state has special rights overexploration and exploitation of marine resources.