2023-08-13 06:00:00
Today, cruise ships reach ever larger sizes. The Icon of the Seas is currently the largest of them. Tristan Bergen 13/08/2023 08:00 5 min
The Icon of the Seas, a gigantic ocean liner, will soon be surveying the seas of the Caribbean despite the current climatic context. This one is thehe largest cruise ship in the world and is considered by many to be a anti-ecological monster.
A huge liner
According to Tim Meyer, the CEO of the shipbuilder Meryer Turku in charge of its construction, the Icon of the Seas is to this day the largest cruise ship in the world. This one, commissioned by the shipping company Royal Caribbean, has everything of a real floating city.
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The new ship has seven swimming pools, a park, shops, an esplanade, more than 40 restaurants, a water park, an obstacle course at height and even… A skating rink ! From the top of his 250,800 tonsit will be able by January 2024 to accommodate a few 10,000 passengers over twenty floors across the Caribbean seas from Miami.
This disproportionate liner, making 5 times the size of the Titanicwill participate in awakening of cruising sectors who had been greatly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Most cruise lines see their customers returning en masse. According to the Cruise Lines International Association, passenger volumes will exceed pre-pandemic levels in 2023 by 31,5 millions of passengers.
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While this renewed interest in cruises is good news for the cruise industry, environmentalists see it as a new stab in the fight against global warmingthis sector being one of the most polluting for the seas as for the atmosphere.
An ecological aberration
Cruise ships are among the most polluting means of transport used today. While these greatly affect marine ecosystems, they are also responsible for significant atmospheric pollution. In 2022, the 218 European cruise ships issued 509 tons of sulfur oxides into the atmosphere compared to 465 tonnes in 2019, a figure that is clearly increasing.
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To get an idea of the amount of pollution emitted, this total of 509 tons exceeds the amount of sulfur oxides produced by a billion cars in a yeareither 4.4 times more than all cars on the continent combined. Some studies have also shown thata single ocean liner could emit as many particles as a million cars !
The fact that cruise liners are becoming more and more imposing is a real environmental problem that no longer needs to be proven today. However, some specialists see this race for gigantism as a benefit, theenergy efficiency of a large vessel being greater than that of several smaller vessels combined. Nevertheless, modern ocean liners are taking new steps to reduce their particulate emissions.
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The Icon of the seas indeed fuels liquefied natural gas (LNG), a less polluting gas than traditional marine fuels. However, LNG, which is essentially composed of methane, is indeed a powerful greenhouse gas et the leaks regularly observed on farms also have serious consequences for the global climate. Its use by the cruise industry may therefore increase its operation and promote this type of leakage with potentially even more harmful consequences for our environment.
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