TOPICS 

    Subscribe to our newsletter

     By signing up, you agree to our Terms Of Use.

    FOLLOW US

    • About Us
    • |
    • Contribute
    • |
    • Contact Us
    • |
    • Sitemap
    封面
    NEWS

    Study: Seaborne Pollution Near China More Than Doubled

    Rapidly growing maritime transportation estimated to cause 18,000 premature deaths every year.

    The main culprits behind China’s notoriously bad air are usually said to be coal burning and road traffic, but a new study published in Nature Climate Change on Monday says that the area’s rapidly growing shipping industry is a significant polluter, too.

    The study, based on travel data of more than 18,000 ships in East Asia, said that CO2 emissions, a major greenhouse gas, had more than doubled between 2005 and 2013. And it estimates that the air pollution from ocean-going vessels in the area contributes to about 18,000 premature deaths annually in China.

    Tsinghua University in Beijing, Duke University and North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in the U.S., and NASA jointly conducted the study. Liu Huan, its leading author, told Sixth Tone that shipping emissions in East Asia are relatively little studied compared to other areas in the world, even though about 40 percent of global maritime trade passes through this part of the world.

    The study looked at the four seas that surround China — the Bohai, Yellow, East China, and South China Seas — as well as the Sea of Japan and Western Pacific. The areas around China were responsible for nearly two-thirds of the region’s CO2 emissions. The East China Sea saw the most emissions; ships there were responsible for 31 percent of the total.

    International Maritime Organization estimated shipping accounted for about 2.2 percent of global emissions in 2012 and that this could grow more than threefold by 2050. Yet shipping remains one of the least regulated areas when it comes to emission reductions. The Paris Agreement signed in April aims to curb climate change but left shipping regulations open for further negotiations.

    As a part of broader push to limit air pollution and climate change, China in December 2015 published a roadmap to reduce shipping emissions, which includes the establishment of a so-called Shipping Emission Control Area that specifies ships need to use cleaner fuels when close to shore. These regulations first went into effect for the Yangtze River Delta on April 1 and will apply to the busiest coastal areas by 2019. Before the announcement, China’s regulations for the shipping industry did not specify emission standards.

    According to China’s Ministry of Transport, the regulations should reduce PM2.5 — small particles that can penetrate into people’s bloodstream — by 60 percent and sulfur oxide concentrations by 80 percent in and around Shanghai, China’s largest port located at the mouth of the Yangtze River.

    But Liu said regions near the sea are not the only areas affected by seaborne emissions. “Shipping pollution does not only affect people living in coastal areas, but also those who live inland,” she said.

    (Header image: An aerial view of Shanghai Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone, Sept. 18, 2013. Yang Shenlai/Sixth Tone)