The Clean Arctic Alliance has expressed strong concerns about the environmental impact of shipping in the Arctic, especially regarding black carbon emissions in view of International Maritime Organization’s Pollution Prevention and Response (PPR) Sub-Committee meeting.
The twelfth session of the PPR Sub-Committee is meeting from January 27th to 31st to address various environmental impacts of shipping across the world, including the Arctic. The PPR subcommittee will consider whether to impose mandatory requirements to reduce black carbon emissions in the Arctic.
Black Carbon emissions
Black carbon emissions are tiny particles or soot produced by the incomplete combustion of marine fuels, especially heavy fuel oil. Black carbon has serious environmental impacts. In the Arctic, it can settle on ice and snow, reducing their reflectivity, causing them to absorb more heat and accelerate melting.
In the Arctic, distillate fuel is readily available and in widespread use, mainly by smaller vessels. However, larger ships, oil and chemical tankers, bulk carriers and general cargo vessels can and must implement a fuel switch.
Following IMO discussions in 2024 regarding the concept of ‘polar fuels’ – fuels acceptable for use in polar waters due to the lower emissions of black carbon – the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) proposed to define the characteristics of such polar fuels using four fuel quality criteria, the same that are used to characterise DMA distillates in the 2024 ISO standard.
Since DMA dominates the global marine distillate market, these lower black carbon-producing DMA distillates – i.e. ’polar fuels’ – can be supplied to ships and bunkerers anywhere required for Arctic operations. According to the Clean Arctic Alliance, the challenge for PPR12 will be to agree on the fuel quality criteria that would define ‘polar fuels’ opening the way for a mandatory approach to the use of these fuels and other new and existing non-residual fuels with similarly low black carbon emissions in the Arctic under MARPOL Annex VI.
A second Arctic specific issue under consideration at PPR12 concerns oil spills. Norway has proposed a possible definition of polar oil fuels which would be acceptable for use and carriage for use as fuel in Arctic waters under MARPOL Annex I. Norway first proposed to expand the output on reducing the risks of use and carriage of heavy fuel oil to include an upper pour point limit (the lowest temperature at which a fuel or lubricant will flow under specific conditions) in the definition of HFO in 2022.
New fuel blends created to meet the requirements of the 2020 global 0.5% sulphur fuel cap have pour points above 0°C. Virtually all distillates including the proposed DMA ‘polar fuels’ have pour points of 0°C or less. Norway proposes a slightly different definition for ‘pour point polar fuel distillates’ than the ISO proposal for ‘distillate polar fuels’ which reduce black carbon.
Norway’s proposed MARPOL Annex I amendment encompasses the Polar Code’s Arctic Waters. This area however excludes a large part of the Arctic around Iceland and off the Norwegian coast, where ship activity and black carbon emissions are very high. To be effective at reducing black carbon emissions, a polar fuels regulation would need to cover the whole Arctic and not just the waters where ice cover or loose ice is likely to be present.
The IMO has committed to take global regulatory action to cut ship CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions at a meeting of its Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC 83) in April. The fact that black carbon isn’t a greenhouse gas but a form of particulate matter – soot – should not be an obstacle to similar regulatory action to reduce Arctic black carbon ship emissions and the impact on the Arctic, the Alliance notes.
In fact, in light of the strength of black carbon’s radiative forcing effect and given that the Arctic is facing the likelihood of exceeding multiple climate thresholds or ‘tipping points’ – the loss of summer sea ice, melting of the Greenland ice sheet, slowing of the Atlantic Meridional Oceanic Circulation (AMOC) and catastrophic climate breakdown with potentially severe global consequences, the IMO should not hesitate to act now to reduce black carbon emissions.
It is imperative that during PPR 12, member states endorse the concept of polar fuels – including distillate-grade marine fuels such as DMA or new fuels resulting in comparable or lower black carbon emissions – and agree as a matter of urgency to regulate emissions of black carbon from Arctic shipping, the Alliance concludes.
To remind, in October, 2024, the Clean Arctic Alliance had also previously emphasized the need for a comprehensive Arctic-wide black carbon regulation to address unregulated emissions effectively.
