Ship Shape: California Air Board Approves Tough New Limits on Ship Emissions

Friends of the Earth’s Clean Vessels campaign also works to clean up air emissions from large vessels, including cruise ships, which pollute our skies, threaten human health and cause global warming.  These vessels burn dirty bunker fuel, which literally comes from the bottom of the oil barrel and is more than 1,000 times dirtier than the diesel fuel used in trucks and buses. At the urging of Friends of the Earth and other environmental groups, the California Air Resources Board took a bold step towards the clean up of vessel air emissions by passing a regulation to phase out the use of dirty bunker fuel.  We successfully ushered in a new California regulation that requires ships to burn low-sulfur diesel fuel instead of bunker fuel within 24 nautical miles of California’s coast.

Starting in 2009, the new rule will significantly reducing particulate matter, sulfur oxide, and nitrogen oxide emissions. The shipping industry consistently opposes any attempt to reduce the dangerous air emissions from vessels which is why California’s new rule is vitally necessary and important.

Letter to CARB | SF Chronicle: Air board OKs toughest limits on ship exhausts