How Does Shipping Impact Public Health?
September 26th was World Maritime Day, an occasion meant to mark the importance of the world’s maritime shipping industry. And it’s hugely important: At any given moment, there are more than 50,000 ships crossing the ocean or loading or unloading at ports around the world. These ships transport 90% of all global trade, and in the United States, 95% of cargo arrives by ship. That means if you look around you, most of what you see probably traveled at some point on a ship. Much of modern life as we know it would not be possible without the maritime shipping industry, but alongside its benefits come devastating impacts.
Altogether, the shipping industry emits an estimated 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases every year. To put that in perspective, if the global shipping industry was a country, it would be the sixth largest polluter in the world. Shipping fuels climate change, warms our ocean and harms marine wildlife with noise and ship strikes—and it also has terrible public health ramifications.
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In the United States, we have more than 360 ports, where ships from all over the world unload and load goods, often idling with their engines on and continuing to spew some of the dirtiest pollutants into the air. The scale of this pollution can be staggering. Take the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach: Together, they handle 40% of containers entering the United States, and they also produce 100 tons of smog every day. That’s more than the daily emissions of the six million cars in the Southern California region.
We know that this industry’s impact on public health is immense. In the United States, approximately 39 million people live in close proximity to a port, and emissions from vessels and port activities contribute to poor air quality in surrounding areas. This air pollution has been found to lead to respiratory diseases, cardiovascular issues, and other health problems among port workers and community members. This is also a justice issue: Port communities, which are often lower-income and communities of color, bear a disproportionate share of these impacts due to their proximity to these pollution hotspots. Globally, emissions from the shipping industry cause an estimated 250,000 premature deaths and six million childhood asthma cases each year.
We must act to clean up this industry now. That’s why one year ago, Ocean Conservancy, along with 31 other organizations, called on the Biden administration to issue an executive order to accelerate zero-emission shipping in the United States and abroad. In that letter we outlined seven specific time-bound actions for decarbonizing the maritime sector:
- Use existing Clean Air Act authority to establish a clear timeline for eliminating emissions through a goal-based fuel standard for ships stopping at U.S. ports.
- Build a baseline for emissions management by immediately establishing a monitoring, reporting and verification system to collect fuel consumption and emissions data from all ships that traverse U.S. waters and use U.S. ports.
- Invest in the electrification and quieting of the U.S. federal ferry and harbor craft fleet.
- Support U.S. shipbuilders and other maritime actors to build low-/zero-emission and quiet marine vessels.
- Support the development of zero-emission alternative fuels and technologies for the maritime sector.
- Phase out and ban the use of sulfur scrubbers on ships in U.S. waters.
Since that letter was sent last World Maritime Day, support for an executive order has only grown. In June 2024, more than 60 total organizations and eight companies in the shipping industry had signed on to our call. The message also got the attention of Congress, which echoed this call for action: In July, Representative Nanette Barragán led a group of 16 members of Congress to submit their own letter to the Biden administration in support of executive action. And in the past year, more than 27,000 Ocean Conservancy supporters have joined us in calling on the president to clean up the shipping industry.
