After a brief hiatus due to COVID-19, luxury cruises are back and this new study shows that cruise ship pollution at Europe’s busiest ports is back to pre-pandemic levels leaving many cities exposed to air pollution.

Compared to the year 2019, the number of cruise ships, the time they spent around ports and the fuel they consumed all increased by about a quarter (23-24%). This resulted in an increase of 9% in SOX emissions, 18% in NOX, and 25% in PM2.5 emissions.

More sulphur than 1 billion cars

The analysis shows that despite the introduction of the UN shipping body’s sulphur cap in 2020, Europe’s 218 cruise ships emitted more sulphur oxides (SOX ) than 1 billion cars in 2022, or 4.4 times more than all the continent’s cars.

Barcelona ranks most sulphur polluted port

In terms of cruise-sourced air pollution, Barcelona was Europe’s most polluted port last year followed by Civitavecchia, a coastal port northwest of Rome, and the Athenian port of Piraeus.

However, it was not just Mediterranean cities that bore the brunt of cruise ship pollution. Hamburg rose from 17th most polluted in 2019 to sixth in 2022. The UK port of Southampton rose to seventh place.

Venice drops from worst to 41st

Yet, it was not all doom and gloom. Venice, Europe’s most polluted cruise port in 2019 - and poster child of mass cruise tourism - fell to 41st following a ban on large cruise ships entering the port that was introduced in 2021. This led to an 80% fall in SOX emissions from cruise ships.

However, that did not stop Italy from surpassing Spain as the most cruise ship polluted country in Europe. While Mediterranean countries made up the top three most polluted, Norway in fourth showed that this is not simply a Mediterranean problem.

One corporation (still) pollutes them all

The most polluting cruise ship operator was MSC Cruises, whose vessels emitted nearly as much sulphur as all the 291 million cars in Europe. When looking at parent companies, as in our original 2019 report, the Carnival Corporation comes on top with the 63 ships under its control emitting 43% more SOX than all of Europe’s cars in 2022.

Disconcerting

Many cruise operators such as MSC Cruises have been investing in fossil gas (LNG) as an alternative to conventional marine fuels.

As of now, more than 40% of cruise ships in the order books of global shipyards are slated to be delivered with dual-fuel LNG engines. When running on LNG, these ships will cause less air pollution, but they are more damaging than fuel oils from a climate perspective due to methane slip from their four-stroke engines.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, over 80 times more climate warming than CO2 [1]. The cruise ship MS Iona, for example, emitted as much methane as 10,500 cows over a year.

T&Eʼs recommendations:

• Establish more stringent decarbonisation requirements on cruise ships that call at European ports.
• Extend the zero-emission berth mandate for cruise ships to cover stay at anchorage.
• Implement zero-emission operational corridors for the most popular cruise ships trajectories in European waters.
• Extend the Sulphur Emission Control Areas (SECAs) to the rest of all EU and UK waters.
• Develop NOX operational standards for ships at the EU level.
• Ban the use of scrubbers, especially open-loop ones, in all European waters.
• Cruise companies should discontinue investing in LNG-powered vessels and prioritise zero emission technologies, such as hydrogen fuel-cells, batteries and wind-power.

Read the full report here