On a cruise ship, indulgence knows no bounds. But the industry’s tendencies of overconsumption extend beyond all-you-can-eat buffets and unlimited drink packages — and come at an environmental cost.
A June study from sustainable transport campaigner The European Federation for Transport and Environment found that 63 cruise ships owned by parent company Carnival Corporation emitted 43% more sulfur oxides, a group of harmful air pollutants, than all the 291 million cars in Europe in 2022.
The statistic, while jarring, is a significant decrease from a few years ago, when the organization found ships owned by Carnival Corporation that visited European ports in 2017 emitted 10 times more sulfur oxides than all of Europe’s cars.
The drop is largely thanks to a 2020 rule from the International Maritime Organization that lowered the sulfur content limit of ship fuel from 3.5% to 0.5%.