It’s a vicious cycle. As sea ice melts and opens new routes for maritime traffic in the Arctic, the environmental fallout caused by vessels burning fossil fuels adds to global warming, which in turn melts more sea ice.
A perfect example of this is black carbon. It’s a sooty material emitted from gas and diesel engines that aren’t completely combusted. Not only does black carbon pollute the air with particulate matter, but because of its ability to absorb light as heat, it contributes to climate change by warming the air.
When black carbon is deposited on ice in the Arctic, it takes away its ability to reflect heat.
It looks like the IMO’s pledge to reduce emissions by at least 20% is totally feasible. At least according to the following recent study
Reducing travel speeds and using an intelligent queuing system at busy ports can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from oceangoing container vessels by 16-24%, according to researchers. Not only would those relatively simple interventions reduce emissions from a major, direct source of greenhouse gases, the technology to implement these measures already exists.
