BERLIN, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The German Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU) has criticized cruise ship operators on Tuesday for the harmful environment impact of their industry and called for an outright harbor ban to be imposed on the most polluting tourist vessels.
NABU lamented that only a single newly-built cruise ship, the AIDA Nova, was powered with liquefied natural gas (LNG) technology in 2018. All other 76 vessels assessed by NABU in an annual industry report continued to rely on highly-polluting heavy fuel oils with adverse effects for human and marine life.
"It is a scandal that ships are still being built in the year 2018 which rely on heavy fuel oils for propulsion and do not use any effective exhaust technologies", NABU president Leif Miller told press. Miller warned that inhabitants of all major port cities in Europe were already "suffering massively from emissions produced by the booming cruise ship industry."
Miller recommended the most affected areas to follow the example of Norway which has banned the most polluting cruise ships from entering its world-famous Fjords. He argued that no other measure would suffice to protect the health of inhabitants and sensitive ecosystems.
NABU noted that the German cruise ship operators such as Hapag-Lloyd Cruises and TUI Cruises had made some recent and welcome efforts to reduce airborne emissions from ships, for example by installing diesel particulate filters. Nevertheless, global industry leaders like MSC Cruises, Celebrity Cruises and Royal Caribbean had hardly any products at all to offer to environmentally-minded consumers.
Although the widespread use of LNG to power vessels would reduce their negative impact on air quality significantly, NABU said that it could only be seen as a first step towards a more sustainable cruise ship industry. The organization emphasized on Tuesday that LNG was still a fossil fuel which contributed to Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions. If policymakers were serious about meeting the Paris climate goals, they would hence also have to promote the development of cleaner propulsion systems in the shipping industry more generally.
According to recent figures, NABU easily defended its title as Germany's largest environmental group in 2017 with a total membership if more than 660,000. The organization publishes an annual ranking of the cleanest cruise ships in order to pressure operators to adopt more sustainable business practices.
