Economic savings linked to future Arctic shipping trade are at odds with climate change mitigation

Abstract

This paper assesses costs, emissions, and climate impact by freight shipping in the Arctic with main focus on the Northern Sea Route. The entire route lies in Arctic waters, which due to global warming, has become ice free during summer and autumn. The route goes from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean along the Russian Arctic coast and reduces voyage distance by 40 % between Northern Europe and Japan. Traditionally, comparisons of the climate impact of transport solutions have been based on fuel consumption and carbon dioxide (CO2), while other trace emissions in the exhaust gas have been ignored. It is becoming increasingly well-known however, that aerosols, and their precursors emitted from shipping are strong climate forcers, with a magnitude that is intimately connected to the specific region of emission. Taking into account these considerations, we apply region-specific Global Warming Potential (GWP) characterization factors to estimate the relative magnitude of the short-lived climate forcers in the Arctic compared to traditional shipping regions and to the impact of CO2 emissions in light of reduced overall fuel consumption. The results indicate that there are no general climate benefits of utilizing the Northern Sea Route, even with cleaner fuels, since the additional impact of emissions in the Arctic more than offsets the effect of shorter voyages. In terms of climate change mitigation, managing this trade-off will be challenging, as the Northern Sea Route offers cost savings per ton of freight transported. Corresponding author: Haakon@marintek.sintef.no 2

Arctic shipping: A systematic literature review of comparative studies

“…Guy (2006) found that the NWP is cost-competitive under specific scenarios whilst Faury and Cariou (2016) found the NSR to be cost-competitive in specific months of the year. Of the eight studies that appraised emissions, one concluded that Arctic routes are less energy efficient than the traditional ones (Lindstad et al, 2016).…”

“…Wang et al (2016) argued that if the time value of cargo is included in Lasserre's (2014) calculations, then both the NSR and NWP are more competitive than the Suez route by 3% and 65% respectively on the Rotterdam-Shanghai route and 52% and 85% on the Rotterdam-Yokohama route respectively. The Arctic routes are shown to be competitive in almost all of the papers considering single/round voyages as well as in Lindstad et al (2016), who did not explicitly define the time frame. The competitiveness of the NSR ranges from 0.5% (Schøyen and Bråthen, 2011) to 47.…”

“…As regards the types of fuel used by ships in the Arctic routes, Lasserre (2014;2015) claimed that IFO 380 fuel may not be appropriate during winter navigation. The picture becomes more blurred if possible taxation on fuel is assumed (Schøyen and Bråthen, 2014), future emissions surcharges (Carriou and Faury, 2015), the use of alternative fuels in the Arctic or the extension of a recent IMO policy that requires vessels to use fuels containing less than 0.1% sulphur in ECAs such as the North and Baltic seas to the Polar Circle (Lindstad et al, 2016). Moreover, alternative approaches of estimating the environmental impact of maritime operations on different regions my give different results.…”

Revisiting history: Can shipping achieve a second socio-technical transition for carbon emissions reduction?

“…Some landscape events, such as the opening up of a route in the Arctic, can be expected to stimulate further trade (Smith and Stephenson, 2013;Lindstad et al, 2016), as can deliberate attempts to increase commodity flows (Clott et al, 2015). Such comments apply to short-sea shipping equally (Morales-Fusco et al, 2012;.…”

Consequences of global shipping traffic for marine giants

“…Potential environmental benefits would include fewer emissions, reduced fuel requirements, and less time spent travelling between locations. Although these new shipping routes provide immense economic benefits to the shipping industry, there are numerous potentially adverse environmental consequences to their use (Lindstad et al 2016). Atmospheric and marine pollution are likely to increase in Arctic regions, as will the risk of bioinvasions due to the spread of invasive species released via ballast water (Seebens et al 2013).…”