climate1
Health risk from shipping pollution highlighted
JohnVidal Environment editor
Britain and other European governments have been accused of underestimating the health risks from shipping pollution following research which shows that one giant container ship can emit almost the same amount of cancer and asthma causing chemicals as 50m cars.
Confidential data from maritime industry insiders based on engine size and the quality of fuel typically used by ships and cars shows that 15 of the world's biggest ships may emit as much pollution as all the world's 760m cars.
Low-grade ship bunker fuel (or fuel oil) has up to 2,000 times the sulphur content of diesel fuel used in US and European motorcars. It consists of a viscous, almost tar-like substance which must be heated to melting point before it can be injected.
Pressure is mounting on the UN's International Maritime Organisation and the EU to tighten laws governing ship emissions following the decision by the US government last week to impose a 230-mile buffer zone along its entire coastline, a move that is expected to be followed by Canada.
The setting up of a low-emission shipping zone follows American academic research which showed that pollution from the world's 90,000 cargo ships leads to 60,000 deaths a year in the US alone and costs up to $330bn a year in health costs from lung and heart diseases.
The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the buffer zone, which could be in place by next year, will save more than 8,000 lives a year, with new air quality standards cutting sulphur in fuel by 98%, particulate matter by 85% and nitrogen oxide emissions by 80%.
The new study by the Danish government's environmental agency adds to this picture. It suggests that shipping emissions cost the Danish health service almost £5bn a year, mainly treating cancers and heart problems.
A previous study estimated that 1,000 Danes die prematurely each year because of shipping pollution. No comprehensive research has been carried out on the effects on UK coastal communities, but the number of deaths is expected to be much higher. Europe, which has some of the world's busiest shipping lanes, has dramatically cleaned up sulphur and nitrogen emissions from land-based transport in the last 20 years but has resisted imposing tight laws on the shipping industry, even though the technology exists to remove emissions. Cars driving 15,000km a year emit approximately 101g of sulphur oxide gases (or SOx) in that time. The world's largest 85,790KW ships' diesel engines which typically operate for about 280 days a year generate roughly 5,200 tonnes of SOx.
The EU plans only two low-emission marine zones which should come into force in the English Channel and Baltic after 2015. Both are less stringent than the proposed us zone, and neither seeks to limit deadly particulate emissions. Shipping emissions have escalated in the last 15 years as China has emerged as the world's manufacturing capital.
A new breed of intercontinental container ship has been developed which is extremely cost-efficient. However, it uses diesel engines as powerful as land-based power stations but with the lowest quality fuel.
"Ship pollution affects the health of communities in coastal and inland regions around the world, yet pollution from ships remains one of the least regulated parts of our global transportation system," said lames Corbett, professor of marine policy at the University of Delaware, one of the authors of the report which helped persuade the US government to act.
Yesterday a spokesman for the UK government's Maritime and Coastguard Agency accepted there were major gaps in the legislation. "Issues of particulate matter remain a concern. They need to be addressed and we look forward to working with the international community," said environment policy director Jonathan Simpson.
"Europe needs a low emission zone right around its coasts, similar to the US, if we are to meet health and environmental objectives," said Crister Agrena of the Air Pollution and Climate Secretariat in Gothenburg, one of Europe's leading air quality organisations.
"It is unacceptable that shipping remains one of the most polluting industries in the world. The UK must take a lead in cleaning up emissions," said Simon Birkett, spokesman for the Campaign for Clean Air in London. "Other countries are planning radical action to achieve massive health and other savings but the UK is strangely inactive."
Shipping is accepted as the cheapest and most efficient method of moving goods around the world, but in the decade before the current recession trade exploded with hundreds of new ships built.
Note: The diesel oil used by shipping is so like a tar that it has to be heated to a suitable flowing point before it can be injected into the cylinders, basically an otherwise unusable residue of oil refining. I always wondered just why all motor ships trailed a plume of smoke from their funnels. Now I know, it's pollutant on a grand scale....note the enormous difference between a single car and a single ship
JF
From the 'Guardian'
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Oceans of evidence for global warming
Tim Radford in Washington
The first evidence of human-produced global warming in the oceans has been found, thanks to computer analysis of seven million temperature readings taken over 40 years to depths of 700 metres (2,300ft).
Tim Barnett, of the Scripps Institution in San Diego, told the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington yesterday he was "stunned" by the findings, which have yet to be published in the scientific press.
"The statistical significance of these results is far too strong to be merely dismissed and should wipe out much of the uncertainty about the reality of global warning," he said.
In effect, US scientists financed by the government have once again told the Bush administration that global warming is real, and that humans were responsible. America pulled out of the Kyoto agreement, which came into force on Wednesday, under which many nations have agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"Over the past 40 years there has been considerable warming of the planetary system and approximately 90% of that warming has gone directly into the oceans," Dr Barnett said. "So if you want to go and find out what's causing it, that's the place to look. We did look. We defined a fingerprint, if you wish, of ocean warming... We had several computer simulations, for instance, one for natural variability. Could the climate system just do this on its own? The answer was clearly no."
The climate shift that affected the oceans would have other consequences. A dramatic acceleration of glacier melting in the Andes, and in western China, could leave millions of people without enough water each summer.
Climate warming would alter snow levels in the American mountains and precipitate a water crisis in the western US within 20 years. In the past four decades, other scientists told the conference, an extra 20,000 cubic kilometres of glacial ice had flowed into the sea, changing salinity levels and threatening to alter ocean flow patterns, with unpredictable consequences.
The warming of the Arctic could have a big impact on seals, polar bears and walruses, which depend on winter ice for hunting. In 1997, hundreds of thousands of short-tailed shearwaters died because a bloom of plankton changed the colour of the water in the Bering Strait and masked the birds' food supply. There was evidence of a build-up of melt water below the Greenland ice sheet. If the ice cap melted, sea levels could rise by seven metres.
"We've got a serious problem ahead of us. The debate is no longer: is there a global warming signal? The debate now is: what are we going to do about it?" Dr Barnett asked.
"Global warming is going on and you can see it in the oceans. The evidence really is overwhelming and it's a good time for nations that are not part of Kyoto to re-evaluate their positions and see if it would be to their advantage to join."
The levels of warming were seemingly small: 0.5C (0.9F) at the surface, 0.15C at greater depths.
But oceans cover 70% of the Earth, to depths of two or three miles. What mattered was not the temperature, but the volume of heat submerged.
"If we could mine the energy that has gone in over the past 40 years we could run the state of California for over 200,000 years," Dr Barnett said.
"It's an amazing amount of energy that's gone in. Where did it come from? Not the sun, satellites would have picked that up. It's come from greenhouse warming."
www.aaas.org/meetings
Landfill gas set to generate green income
An renewable energy project by Scottish Borders
Council will create enough green electricity to power more than 1,000 homes,
while cutting annual carbon emissions by the equivalent of around 30,000 tonnes.
The project, at Easter Langlee Waste Disposal site near Galashiels, Scotland,
takes away the local authority’s burden of controlling and disposing of methane,
a greenhouse gas that is 21 times more damaging to the environment than carbon
dioxide. At the same time it has the capacity to generate up to 1.0MW of clean
power for the national grid.
The landfill gas generation scheme has been designed, developed, financed, and
is operated by Manchester-based sustainable power group ENER-G . The 15-year
contract could create a significant income for Scottish Borders Council as well
as cost savings in infrastructure at the site. The savings in carbon dioxide
emissions is equivalent to the Council planting three million trees.
"The Council is effectively turning a liability into an asset and the income
will depend on electricity output," said Hugh Richmond, Managing Director of
ENER-G Natural Power. "We will be using two engines with a total rated capacity
of 800kW minimum, and this capacity may be increased if there is sufficient gas
production.
"The project is funded entirely by ENER-G and we will pay a portion of the
electricity generation revenue to the Council, which does not need to get
involved in major capital spending or extensive maintenance work, because we do
all that.
"A further benefit to the Council is ENER-G’s ‘hire fleet’ approach, which means
if there is greater amount of gas generated then we are obliged install the
correct size of engine to meet the gas production, thus maximising generation
potential."
The site has been capped with plastic to prevent methane escaping into the
atmosphere and wells have been drilled to transfer gas to a compact generator
unit where the electricity conversion process takes place.
"The system involves an innovative application of tried-and-tested technology,
which is why we can guarantee minimum service levels to the Council," added Hugh
Richmond.
For more information, visit, www.energ.co.uk
THE INDEPENDENT
The changes are inevitable, said the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, using data from the Hadley Centre, Britain's premier climate-study facility.
The Environment Agency, responsible for monitoring recent river flooding and protecting the British environment, said tackling the effects of climate change was already proving costly, and added: "Our emergency workforce is the 'thin green frontline' when it comes to flood events."
The gloomy picture of a climate out of control, and of defences being overwhelmed, brought renewed calls for faster and more radical government action, especially by the United States, the largest generator of the carbon dioxide that is a key greenhouse gas leading to warming.
The analysis found that on average Britain would warm by between two and five degrees centigrade in the coming century, though the rise would be greater over land, reaching up to eight degrees centigrade in the south and east. To stabilise the levels of carbon dioxide would become harder, the Defra report said.
"We're already seeing the some change created by the greenhouse emissions of the Seventies," said Geoff Jenkins, head of the climate prediction group at the Hadley Centre. "We expect the trend to continue."
In the south and east, which are most affected by the continental land mass, summer sunshine will increase by 20 per; cent, but winter rainfall will increase by 25 per cent, and summer rainfall could halve.
"The United Kingdom is facing a future of unprecedented change," Defra said. "Cutting emissions now and in the future will go some way to prevent the worst effects, but our past emissions mean some degree of change is inevitable." A spokesman for the environment group Greenpeace , said: "Things need to be done, now. Global warming is happening and it will affect people in the developing world more than anywhere else. Many lives are going to be lost to global warming unless action is taken now. One would hope that this report is a spur for White House action."
America has been reluctant to make firm commitments to reducing carbon dioxide emissions, having snubbed the Kyoto Treaty, which was intended to reduce emissions from industrialised countries below their 1990 levels by 2010. Britain has committed itself to meeting those targets.
But measurements taken by the Hadley Centre show "carbon feedback" from forests and natural vegetation - as rain forests are cut down and burnt - is rising and could accelerate global warming even further.
The atmospheric concentration of many greenhouse gases reached their highest levels in 2001; global temperatures continued to rise with 2002, 2001 and 1998 being the hottest years on record.
Defra said it had strategies in place to cope with flooding.
BY CHARLES ARTHUR
Technology Editor
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