← on nowLGR-043 · v0.1.0 · model · count shipping: how much, per second and per year
shipping · about 100,000 ships
fuel burned, tonnes
300 million
a year
9.5
a second
821,355
a day
co2 from it, tonnes
1 billion
a year
31.7
a second
2.7 million
a day
method IMO Fourth GHG Study 2020: fuel and CO2; sulphur-cap warming from Yuan et al. 2024.
- in 2020 ships were made to cut the sulphur in their fuel by four fifths. the air over the sea got cleaner. the haze had been shading the ocean, and without it the ocean measurably warmed. cleaning one thing uncovered another.source: IMO 2020; Yuan et al. 2024, Communications Earth & Environment
- most of the tonnage is oil, coal, iron ore and grain. a good share of the grain is feed.source: UNCTAD Review of Maritime Transport
live. this is the channel itself. embed it anywhere:
<iframe src="https://thetoll.earth/?channel=shipping" width="100%" height="520" style="border:1px solid #D9DDDB" title="the toll · shipping"></iframe>
or the whole broadcast, every channel, the same for everyone:
<iframe src="https://thetoll.earth/?embed=1" width="100%" height="520" style="border:1px solid #D9DDDB" title="the toll · on now, everywhere"></iframe>
how this number is built
- method
- IMO Fourth GHG Study 2020: fuel and CO2; sulphur-cap warming from Yuan et al. 2024.
- range
- fuel 280–330 Mt/yr; CO2 0.9–1.1 Gt/yr
- confidence
- count
- weakness
- the warming effect of the sulphur cap is a modeled attribution, in the tens of hundredths of a degree over decades; stated as measurable, not large.
- dispute
- dispute LGR-043 · corrections are credited
- data
- channels.json (sign-in) · full entry · CC BY 4.0