Arctic marine emissions to increase vastly over next decade: report – Winnipeg Free Press
February 19, 2015
A U.S. study has found that emissions from ships that cause both climate change and acid rain could increase in the Western Arctic by almost 600 per cent over the next decade.
“All of those pollutants have climate and health implications,” said co-author Alyson Azzara. “The fact that it’s growing that much, that rapidly, is the focus.”
Azzara’s study, done for the environmental group the International Council on Clean Transportation, grows out of research she did for the U.S. government on probable increases to shipping in the waters off the Alaskan coast, adjacent to Canada’s. The current study builds on that earlier research by estimating the emission impacts of that shipping.
Over the next decade, the study estimates that tanker, bulk carrier and general cargo shipping into the Western Arctic will grow by between 117 and 469 ships per year. If melting sea ice tempts some shippers to use either the Northwest Passage or Russia’s Northern Sea Route for container ships, that total could increase to an extra 882 ships a year.
