Carnival and The Climate
Climate change is one of the most serious threats facing our world and Carnival Corporation & Plc, as the largest cruise company in the world, has failed to take adequate action to address the harm to the environment created by its fleet of ships.
Cruises and the shipping industry are one of the fastest growing sources of climate pollution. A recent study concluded that ship emissions could reach 17% of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. To put that in perspective, passenger cars accounted for 11.5 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2015. One cruise ship emits as many air pollutants as five million cars. That’s because cruise ships use some of the worst of the worst of fuels, called bunker fuel, which produces dangerous emissions like black carbon. Black carbon alone accounts for almost 50% of warming in the Arctic. Additionally, pollutants from cruise ships are responsible for severe illnesses such as cancer, asthma or cardiovascular diseases and for the premature deaths of tens of thousands of people.
On its own, Carnival Corporation, which includes Carnival Cruises, Holland America, Princess, AIDA, Costa Cruises, Cunard, Seabourn, Fathom and P&O, has:
- increased its climate pollution by 18% since 2005.
- received a grade of C or below for air pollution reduction for 57.8% of its fleet from a prominent environmental organization. In fact, 23 of Carnival’s ships received an F for not using scrubbers or plugging into shore-side power.
- recently been issued notices of violations by the State of Alaska for violations of the state emissions standards.
- recently been fined $40 million and plead guilty to seven felony charges for illegally dumping oil-contaminated waste and intentionally acting to cover it up.
Together we can move Carnival to use existing technology to clean up its #DirtyShips.