Studies review options to cut ship emissions

Environment Daily 1959, 11/10/05

The European Commission has released two consultancy studies examining the technical potential for reducing ship air emissions in EU waters and how market-based instruments could be used to achieve these cuts.

The research was ordered following an EU strategy on shipping emissions launched in 2002.

The first report concludes that emission abatement techniques such as the use of selective catalytic reduction can yield large reductions in sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.  These techniques can be "very cost-effective" compared with reducing emissions from land-based industry, it added.

Of four economic instruments tested in the second study, it appears that a benchmark-based emission trading scheme could provide the highest cuts in SO2 with low abatement costs.  On the other hand, a credit-based emission trading scheme would be best for reducing NOx.

The two other instruments, differentiated port dues and environmental subsidies, would provide the lowest cuts, according to the study.

Nevertheless, it concludes that, overall, the four instruments "do appear to offer the potential for significant emissions reductions at lower cost than simple regulatory alternatives".

Follow-up: European Commission http://europa.eu.int/comm/index_en.htm,

 ship emissions web pages http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/air/transport.htm,

 plus the first http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/air/pdf/task2_general.pdf

and second http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/air/pdf/task3_final.pdf studies.