#COP21shipping- As the Conference of Parties (COP21) on Climate Change began in Paris today, Afloat.ie looks back on Brittany Ferries seasonal Cork-Roscoff route cruiseferry, Pont-Aven. In 2016 their flagship on the French service will be the only ferry operating in Irish waters fitted with emission ‘scrubber’ technology, writes Jehan Ashmore.

The installation of emission reducing technology systems due to be completed early next year on the Pont-Aven, follows stricter ‘green’ controls under the EU’s Environmental Low Sulphur Directive introduced at the beginning of this year. Already other ferries in the fleet have been equipped with scrubbers at a Spanish yard. 

Irish waters are not part of a sulphur zone, SECA (Sulphur Emission Control Area), however as Pont-Aven also operates a route on the English Channel, this geographical area is a SECA zone along with the North Sea and the Baltic.

As the efforts to reduce the cocktail of harmful pollutants rise, French-owned global container giant, the CMA CGM group, announced last week a 50% improvement in its carbon dioxide (CO2) performance for its owned fleet.

The company cite that this due to an efficient environmental policy sustained by deploying innovative solutions, and that this success was accomplished in 10 years.

CMA-CGM claim that currently a container emits approximately 60 grams of CO2 per kilometre, compared to 120 grams in 2005. The Group best-performing ships emit 37 grams of CO2 per container transported, such as the CMA CGM Bougainville which can carry up to 200,000 tons of goods in 18,000 containers.

Shipping today is the most environmentally friendly transport mode: it is 70 times less polluting than flight transportation.

NOTE: For a Graph showing the reduction of CO2 g/ TEU* km, this can be consulted HERE along with an image of containership equipped with various environmental features. * TEU (Twenty Equivalent Unit) i.e. a 20 foot long container.

In addition to further read details on CMA CGM’s article, click the same link for the graph and containership image, by clicking HERE.

Returning to the context of the ferry industry, critics of the EU Sulphur Directive, have claimed that the costs to introduce the technology on such ships was exoribant and that this was a leading contributor to the closure of certain routes.

This in turn had the consequent effect of notably driving heavy goods vehicles (HGV’s) back onto road networks. The increase in volumes leading in turn to congestion and polluting emissions.

A prime example of a route closure attributed to the directive, was DFDS Seaways Harwich-Esbjerg route, the Danish service which closed in 2014 represented the last scheduled ferry service between the UK and Scandinavia.

The nearest alternative route is Newscastle-Ijmuiden (Amsterdam) incidently a DFDS service, though the company does operate direct 'freight' only routes from Immingham in the UK to Scandinavia.