Did you know emissions from cargo ships and other shipping traffic accounts for 4% of worldwide emissions? I do now thanks to this excellent article by John Vidal of the Guardian.
The figures come from a report by oil giant BP and the Institute for Physics and Atmospheres in Wessling, Germany. The article mentions that aviation has gotten all the attention because of the rise of cheap flights. But aviation is only half of shippings emissions. Shipping is also not covered under Kyoto.
Great job by Vidal illuminating a little-know piece of the carbon puzzle.
The shipping industry maintains they want to address the problem internally before officials wise-up and impose emission restrictions. And the problem is going to grow according to a BP Marine official: "Ships are getting bigger and every shipyard in the world has a full order book. There are about 20,000 new ships on order."
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