(Beijing) – China issued its first ever set of national standards to curb harmful emissions from the shipping industry on August 30, as part of its attempts to reduce air pollution and meet its international pledge to fight climate change.
The standards issued jointly by the Ministry of Environment (MEP) and the country's quality watchdog – the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine – aims to cut emissions of greenhouse gasses and other particulate matter from ships with an engine capacity of over 37 kilowatts, Zou Shoumin, an environmental ministry official, said.
The shipping industry contributed 8.4 percent of the total Sulphur dioxide emissions and over 11 percent of nitrogen oxide released in 2013, data from the MEP showed.
The industry standards will be enforced in two stages, said Zou.
In the first stage, the shipping industry is required to cut emissions of PM10 and PM2.5 – cancer-causing particles in the air – by about 70 percent from the levels in 2016 over the next three years by upgrading their technology and by switching to the use of low-Sulphur fuels. One-fifth of the current nitrogen oxide emissions must also be slashed over the same period, said Zou.
Sulphur dioxide emissions from shipping can be reduced by 540,000 tons each year by simply switching to more environmentally friendly fuels, the two central government agencies estimated, and it can cut 40,000 tons of harmful particulate matter per annum over the next three years.
In the second stage, ship operators need to cut another 40 percent of PM10 and PM2.5 emissions from levels in 2019 and reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by a further 20 percent from 2020 to 2022, according to the document.
However, authorities have not spelled out any penalties for operators who fail to meet the standards.
There are 172,600 ships operating in inland rivers and Chinese waters along the country's east coast, government data shows. The country has eight of the world's top ten ports, which together handle a quarter of global shipping traffic.
A study by scientists from Tsinghua University in Beijing and Duke University in the United States found that shipping-related air pollution caused between 14,500 and 37,500 deaths in the East Asian region each year, though no country-by-country breakdown was offered in the research.
Scientists involved in the study which was published in the July edition of Nature Climate Change warned that rising emissions from the shipping industry could worsen global warming in the long term if no action was taken to curb it.
