How to make cruises more “virtuous” and acceptable to local populations? Shipowners operating in the Mediterranean and the French state signed a charter on Thursday to accelerate the sustainable development of cruise companies, after a summer marked by protests against cruises in the south of France.
The text, which applies in all French ports in the Mediterranean, is built around “13 actions” which will “strengthen the efforts already undertaken” to improve the environmental footprint of cruise passengers, indicates the State Secretariat in charge of the Sea in a press release.
Among these actions, the reduction of atmospheric pollution by ships via “the use of fuel with reduced sulfur content will be implemented from 2023” and cruise lines “will adapt their activity in the event of a pollution peak on land”.
Several protest actions this summer in France
The measures of this charter, presented as “unprecedented at the world level”, go “further than the existing regulations”, details the Secretary of State, in order to “voluntarily anticipate measures which will not come into force for the all players in the maritime sector only from January 2025”.
During the summer, several anti-cruise protest actions were carried out in Mediterranean ports in the south of France, such as Marseille, La Ciotat (Bouches-du-Rhône), Nice or Ajaccio (Corsica).
The town hall of Marseille had also published a petition to accelerate the process of establishing in the Mediterranean a zone with low emissions of sulfur oxide, devastating for marine life, known as “SECA”, planned for 2025, a regulation already applied. in the Baltic or North Sea.
A charter signed by all CLIA members
“Innovation in environmental matters (…) cruises such as advanced treatment of waste water on board, electrical connection to the quay, the use of alternative fuel (LNG) are among the steps necessary to achieve our objectives of carbon neutrality”, specifies the Secretary of State.
All members of the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), which brings together the main cruise companies, have signed the charter.