Towards a balanced view of Arctic shipping: estimating economic impacts of emissions from increased traffic on the Northern Sea Route
The extensive melting of Arctic sea ice driven by climate change provides opportunities for commercial shipping due to shorter travel distances of up to 40% between Asia and Europe. It has been estimated that around 5% of the world’s trade could be shipped through the Northern Sea Route (NSR) in the...
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ftunivrotterdam:oai:repub.eur.nl:100316 2023-07-16T03:56:02+02:00 Towards a balanced view of Arctic shipping: estimating economic impacts of emissions from increased traffic on the Northern Sea Route Yumashev, D. (Dmitry) van Hussen, K. (Karel) Gille, J. (Johan) Whiteman, G.M. (Gail) 2017-07-01 application/pdf http://repub.eur.nl/pub/100316 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-1980-6 en eng info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/FP7/603887 http://repub.eur.nl/pub/100316 doi:10.1007/s10584-017-1980-6 urn:hdl:1765/100316 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Climatic Change: an interdisciplinary, international journal devoted to the description, causes and implications of climatic change vol. 143 no. 1-2, pp. 143-155 info:eu-repo/semantics/article 2017 ftunivrotterdam https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-1980-6 2023-06-26T22:29:03Z The extensive melting of Arctic sea ice driven by climate change provides opportunities for commercial shipping due to shorter travel distances of up to 40% between Asia and Europe. It has been estimated that around 5% of the world’s trade could be shipped through the Northern Sea Route (NSR) in the Arctic alone under year-round and unhampered navigability, generating additional income for many European and East Asian countries. Our analysis shows that for Arctic sea ice conditions under the RCP8.5 emissions scenario and business restrictions facing shipping companies, NSR traffic will increase steadily from the mid-2030s onwards, although it will take over a century to reach the full capacity expected for ice-free conditions. However, in order to achieve a balanced view of Arctic shipping, it is important to include its detrimental environmental impacts, most notably emissions of short-lived pollutants such as black carbon, as well as CO2 and non-CO2 emissions associated with the additional economic growth enabled by NSR. The total climate feedback of NSR could contribute 0.05% (0.04%) to global mean temperature rise by 2100 under RCP8.5 (RCP4.5), adding $2.15 trillion ($0.44 trillion) to the NPV of total impacts of climate change over the period until 2200 for the SSP2 socio-economic scenario. The climatic losses offset 33% (24.7%) of the total economic gains from NSR under RCP8.5 (RCP4.5), with the biggest losses set to occur in Africa and India. These findings call for policy instruments aimed at reducing emissions from Arctic shipping and providing compensation to the affected regions. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic black carbon Climate change Northern Sea Route Sea ice RePub - Publications from Erasmus University, Rotterdam Arctic Climatic Change 143 1-2 143 155 |
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Open Polar |
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RePub - Publications from Erasmus University, Rotterdam |
op_collection_id |
ftunivrotterdam |
language |
English |
description |
The extensive melting of Arctic sea ice driven by climate change provides opportunities for commercial shipping due to shorter travel distances of up to 40% between Asia and Europe. It has been estimated that around 5% of the world’s trade could be shipped through the Northern Sea Route (NSR) in the Arctic alone under year-round and unhampered navigability, generating additional income for many European and East Asian countries. Our analysis shows that for Arctic sea ice conditions under the RCP8.5 emissions scenario and business restrictions facing shipping companies, NSR traffic will increase steadily from the mid-2030s onwards, although it will take over a century to reach the full capacity expected for ice-free conditions. However, in order to achieve a balanced view of Arctic shipping, it is important to include its detrimental environmental impacts, most notably emissions of short-lived pollutants such as black carbon, as well as CO2 and non-CO2 emissions associated with the additional economic growth enabled by NSR. The total climate feedback of NSR could contribute 0.05% (0.04%) to global mean temperature rise by 2100 under RCP8.5 (RCP4.5), adding $2.15 trillion ($0.44 trillion) to the NPV of total impacts of climate change over the period until 2200 for the SSP2 socio-economic scenario. The climatic losses offset 33% (24.7%) of the total economic gains from NSR under RCP8.5 (RCP4.5), with the biggest losses set to occur in Africa and India. These findings call for policy instruments aimed at reducing emissions from Arctic shipping and providing compensation to the affected regions. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Yumashev, D. (Dmitry) van Hussen, K. (Karel) Gille, J. (Johan) Whiteman, G.M. (Gail) |
spellingShingle |
Yumashev, D. (Dmitry) van Hussen, K. (Karel) Gille, J. (Johan) Whiteman, G.M. (Gail) Towards a balanced view of Arctic shipping: estimating economic impacts of emissions from increased traffic on the Northern Sea Route |
author_facet |
Yumashev, D. (Dmitry) van Hussen, K. (Karel) Gille, J. (Johan) Whiteman, G.M. (Gail) |
author_sort |
Yumashev, D. (Dmitry) |
title |
Towards a balanced view of Arctic shipping: estimating economic impacts of emissions from increased traffic on the Northern Sea Route |
title_short |
Towards a balanced view of Arctic shipping: estimating economic impacts of emissions from increased traffic on the Northern Sea Route |
title_full |
Towards a balanced view of Arctic shipping: estimating economic impacts of emissions from increased traffic on the Northern Sea Route |
title_fullStr |
Towards a balanced view of Arctic shipping: estimating economic impacts of emissions from increased traffic on the Northern Sea Route |
title_full_unstemmed |
Towards a balanced view of Arctic shipping: estimating economic impacts of emissions from increased traffic on the Northern Sea Route |
title_sort |
towards a balanced view of arctic shipping: estimating economic impacts of emissions from increased traffic on the northern sea route |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
http://repub.eur.nl/pub/100316 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-1980-6 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic black carbon Climate change Northern Sea Route Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Arctic black carbon Climate change Northern Sea Route Sea ice |
op_source |
Climatic Change: an interdisciplinary, international journal devoted to the description, causes and implications of climatic change vol. 143 no. 1-2, pp. 143-155 |
op_relation |
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/FP7/603887 http://repub.eur.nl/pub/100316 doi:10.1007/s10584-017-1980-6 urn:hdl:1765/100316 |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-1980-6 |
container_title |
Climatic Change |
container_volume |
143 |
container_issue |
1-2 |
container_start_page |
143 |
op_container_end_page |
155 |
_version_ |
1771542132476084224 |