IMO News: Steamships to be exempted from the North American Emission Control Area until 2020
Posted October 5, 2010 in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment
While waiting at JFK for a flight to London for a meeting of the International Maritime Organization’s Marine Environment Protection Committee last week, I wrote about a US proposal to undermine a historic international air pollution victory.
Today, I’ll write about what happened.
First, some background, in case you missed last week's post:
Last March, I wrote about our historic air pollution victory at the International Maritime Organization, which governs international shipping. At the March 2010 meeting of the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee, the IMO created a special “Emissions Control Area” around North America to finally clean up the large, ocean-going tankers, container ships, cruise liners, steamships, and other vessels that spew their toxic particulate soot and other pollution hundreds of miles inland.
NRDC worked closely with the US delegation to make this happen—it was a great example of partnership between NRDC and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Coast Guard and other federal agencies with jurisdiction over shipping.
Creating the “ECA”–as it’s known in the jargon of the IMO—was critical to improving air quality downwind of these floating smokestacks.
Here’s how it would work: Starting in 2015, the ECA would extend 200 nautical miles from our coastlines. Within the ECA zone, marine fuel will have 98 percent less sulfur – the critical component of marine fuel that leads to sky-high levels of sulfur dioxide and particulate matter pollution from ships. Then, in 2016, the ships that use this new fuel will have to use pollution-cutting equipment to ensure that they emit 80 percent less smog-forming nitrogen oxides and 85 percent less cancer-causing particulate soot emissions.
Given that today’s ships use a fuel that contains as much sulfur as 3,000 transit buses or long-haul trucks, this was an important victory for cities and states along our coastlines. And, given the way pollution travels with the wind, the air quality and public health benefits of the ECA will extend hundreds of miles inland, reaching as far away as Nevada, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and the Grand Canyon.
The health benefits will be enormous. The U.S. EPA estimates this change will avoid as many as 14,000 premature deaths in 2020, and relieve acute respiratory symptoms in nearly 5 million people each year.
Except.
Except that the US government returned to the IMO last week, with a proposal to exempt all steamships from all ECA zones in the world, forever—an exemption that would cover the new North American ECA before it is even implemented, as well as existing ECAs that currently exist in the North and Baltic Seas and any other ECA zones that may be created in the future.
Stopping--or at least limiting--this proposal was a tough job. So, along with our coalition partners at the Friends of the Earth, the Clean Air Task Force, Earthjustice, and EDF, we got to work.
It didn’t take long before it seemed as though everybody in the building had concluded that the original proposal couldn't fly. A more limited proposal was floated on Wednesday—limit the steamship exemption to the North American ECA only, and sunset it in 2020.
On Thursday, when the proposal finally got aired in the plenary session of the IMO, the Cyprus delegation spoke out against the proposal, the Australian delegation supported it, and 166 member states stood by quietly.
For those keeping score, that’s a 1 – 1 under the rules of the IMO, thereby shelving the proposal until, at a minimum, next year - and maybe forever.
We’d won, for now.
Except.
Except on Friday morning, the situation changed.
The Cyprus delegation’s clear statement of opposition from Thursday was suddenly considered unclear. The 1-1 score was suddenly a 1-0 shutout. With no opposition at all, the proposal was now considered ready for circulation and ready for final approval by the IMO member states at their next meeting.
Uggh.
Listen, I understand that there may be some technical challenges to retrofitting steamships to run on cleaner, lower-sulfur fuels. Retrofitting these ships takes time, equipment, money, and training for the shipworkers - but these are resolvable challenges. And I certainly understand that it's better to retire these old ships and replace them with cleaner, more efficient models than to retrofit them to keep them afloat.
Under the original ECA rules, these ships would have been gone in 2015. Now, people who live downwind of our nation's ports will breathe their emissions until 2020.
So, yes, the final outcome is better than the initial proposal. But it would be far better if the steamships had to clean up by 2015, just like everybody else.
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Comments
John McCown — Oct 8 2010 08:26 PM
Steamships are the dirtiest vessels afloat and giving them a pass is ill-conceived and a step backwards. The submission by the US contained no detailed data and implied that the emissions effect would be deminimous and consistent with the "fraction of a percent" that steamships represent of the world fleet. That implication, however, is inaccurate because these steamships are spending much of their time in short coastal voyages within the North American ECA and they use more fuel than non steam-powered vessels. Taking all the factors into account, my detailed analysis shows that these steamships represent from 7.9% to 17.7% of the total sulfur emissions by vessels in the North American ECA. Using the same morbidity data contained in the original ECA application, backtracking on that amount of sulfur emissions will translate into from 441 to 990 premature deaths annually in the US and Canada along with tens of thousands of other respiratory ailments. This steamship waiver represents a material change to a previously well-thought-out North American ECA framework. In addition to materially increasing toxic sulfur emissions, when you consider the black carbon in the dirty fuel, this waiver will make the climate change effect from vessels even worse. That is an ironic outcome of a meeting that deferred action on the GHG/climate change issue.
With only 1 of 166 delegates showing support, this waiver hardly has strong backing. Prior to any final vote, it seems that it is incumbent on the US to provide detailed data similar to the original ECA application that also highlights the human health effects if this waiver is implemented. Their analysis of the adverse health effects may differ somewhat from mine, but I'm confident it too would show that this steamship waiver would be a material change in sulfur emissions compared to the original ECA application. I'm hopeful that with this new information before them, some MEPC delegates will object to this steamship waiver when it next comes up for a vote. My analysis shows that the sulfur emissions from EACH steamship can be linked with from 9 to 16 premature deaths each year. How can anybody rationally say that the most toxic vessels afloat, by far, should be given a pass to continue burning fuel with 3,000 times as much sulfur as in other fuels? With apologies to Ralph Nader, these steamships are "unsafe at any speed" for human health when they are using dirty fuel.
The vessel sulfur emissions issue is one of the biggest readily changeable environmental issues today. Some 60,000 lives worldwide would be saved with a switch to cleaner fuel. Customers of shipping companies that have stated environmental initiatives should encourage shipping companies to switch ahead of the IMO timeline by rewarding them with more business. SEA/Change (Sulfur Emissions Awareness/Change) is focused on increasing the awareness of this issue with the belief that once someone is aware of all the relevant facts, the path they should take will be obvious.
John McCown
SEA/Change
jdmnyc@panix.com