Prevention of air pollution from ships

IMO Document MEPC 59/INF.15 submitted by the United States informs the Committee of a recently-released, important study that is directly pertinent to the Committee's work on prevention of air pollution from ships. The study is the first to provide a global estimate of maritime shipping's total contribution to air particle pollution based on direct measurements of emissions from ships. The results confirm that ships contribute a significant amount of air pollution, including almost half as much particulate matter pollutants as the total amount released by the world's on-road vehicles, and thus adversely affects local air quality and human health.

If the United States apply the same standard to particulate emissions as Canada, then dust pollution from paved and unpaved roads are considered "open source pollution", meaning they are not road transport related.

2006 Environment Canada data gives the following totals for particulate matter:

• Marine transportation: 10,404.9 tons
• H.D diesel vehicles: 6,771.9 tons
• Off-road diesel: 35,738.6 tons
• Tire wear and brakes: 5,051.7 tons
  
• Dust from paved roads: 3,248,367.6 tons
• Dust from unpaved roads: 8,202,814.4 tons