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Shipping emissions targeted


Maria Burke


The European Commission is to introduce a shipping emissions monitoring system early next year, in a bid to curb the industry’s environmental footprint. Shipping is responsible for about 3% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The measure will apply


to all ships calling at EU ports and will entail monitoring, reporting and verifying emissions based on fuel consumption. The Commission says it will be the starting point for further action on GHGs, possibly including a maritime emissions trading scheme or fuel levies.


In July 2011, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) announced its Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI), requiring new ships to be built to a minimum level of energy efficiency that will be strengthened incrementally over time. By 2030, the EEDI is expected to reduce global GHG ship emissions by 10–20% against business-as-usual projections.


‘But this measure alone – which is applied only to new ships from 2015 – will not be enough to ensure shipping emissions are reduced fast enough,’ according to a joint statement by Siim Kallas, EC vice- president and Connie Hedegaard, EU Commissioner for Climate Action. ‘Discussions about further global measures are ongoing


at IMO level, but we need intermediary steps to quickly deliver emissions reductions, such as energy efficiency measures also for existing ships.’ However, environmental campaigners were disappointed with the Commission’s move. ‘The fact that progress within the IMO on reducing greenhouse gases has stalled should not stop the EU from putting forward its own measures; in fact it should encourage Europe to take the initiative,’ says Bill Hemmings of the NGO Transport & Environment. ‘Studies show there is enormous potential to reduce the environmental impacts of shipping, and the first 20% of any reduction would be cost-free. What the Commission should do is to propose an EU market-based measure as soon as possible, so this potential can be realised.’ However, T&E acknowledges that monitoring and reporting of emissions will ‘ensure that data on ship efficiency are shared transparently [and will enable] commercial operators who wish to choose the most efficient ships to be better informed’.


Conquering Mars Tony Hargreaves


part-time lecturer, University of Huddersfield


G


lobal warming due to the rising CO2


burden is melting


the Arctic ice sheet. The latest results are alarming


(New Scientist, 1 Sept 2012, 6) and, while humans and their activities may not account for all of this, they have certainly played a major role. For far too long we turned a blind


eye or dismissed global warming as a natural event and nothing to do with human activities. Here we see similarities with the hole in the ozone layer. We dumped synthetic substances in the form of CFCs into the atmosphere and pretended they simply disappeared. The style of thinking was that we


were getting something for nothing – nature will quietly clean up our mess and everything will be hunky-dory. But in the real world you don’t get something for nothing. Whenever you do something you simultaneously undo something else; the laws of thermodynamics spring to mind. Global warming means rising sea levels, which, in turn, means more land goes under water. The consequence will be displaced people moving to neighbouring land – a recipe for conflict and war. But this is not the worst of it, for the global warming may enter a cascade phase. The result: a runaway event that changes the environment to one that can no longer support human life. We know of species becoming extinct in the past due to environmental change and we could go the same way. There is now growing pessimism about our future on Earth. I believe that the human race will not become extinct. I am convinced that we will continue to develop and increase our


‘Technology must set its sights on space and research the possibilities of setting up human populations on other planets’


population for millions of years to come. But it won’t be on planet Earth – unless we turn into micro-people. Technology must set its sights on


space and research the possibilities of setting up human populations on other planets. Our biggest challenge then is how to make, say Mars, suitable for life.


It is down to chemical technology to do it by coming up with ways to form an Earth-like atmosphere there, a process known as terraforming. We know the substances needed for this, along with water, are present on that planet.


A first stage in the terraforming of Mars would be to produce global warming there. Releasing CO2


into


the atmosphere from underground sources would achieve this. In this process we should excel, for we have plenty of experience. It is ironic that we may render planet Earth uninhabitable due to global warming and then go on to planet Mars and make it habitable by a similar process. It could be done but it will take at the very least many hundreds of years. It is an exciting prospect and certainly the biggest ever challenge for chemical technology. The day of reckoning has arrived. It is time to get serious about the chemistry of terraforming.


Chemistry&Industry • November 2012 9


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