The Climate Impact of High Seas Shipping

The Climate Impact of High Seas Shipping | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Physical Sciences - Article The Climate Impact of High Seas Shipping Shouyang Wang, Yuze Li, Peng Jia, Shangrong Jiang, Haijiang Li, and 4 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-1300753/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Strict carbon emission regulations are set with respect to countries’ territorial seas or exclusive economic zone shipping activities to meet their climate change commitment under the Paris Agreement. However, no shipping carbon mitigation policies are proposed for the world high sea regions, which results in carbon intensive shipping activities on high seas. In this paper, we propose a Geographic-based Emission Estimation Model (GEEM) to estimate shipping GHG emission patterns on high sea regions. The results indicate that annual shipping CO2-e emissions on high seas reach 211.60 million metric tonnes in 2019, accounting for about one-third of all shipping emissions globally and exceeding annual GHG emissions of countries such as Spain. The average emission from shipping activities on high seas is growing at approximately 7.26% per year, which far surpasses the global shipping emission growth rate of 2.23%. We propose the implementation policies on each high seas region with respect to the main emission driver of each high seas identified from our results. Our policy evaluation results show that carbon mitigation policies could reduce 25.46 and 54.36 million tonnes CO2-e in the primary intervention stage and overall intervention stage respectively, with 12.09% and 25.81% reduction rates in comparison to the 2019 annual high seas shipping GHG emission. High seas International shipping GHG emission Policy evaluation Emission drivers Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-1300753","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Physical Sciences - Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":79459992,"identity":"a2d856b7-f7d3-4af4-b167-c44672cf51e6","order_by":0,"name":"Shouyang 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drivers","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-1300753/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1300753/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"Strict carbon emission regulations are set with respect to countries’ territorial seas or exclusive economic zone shipping activities to meet their climate change commitment under the Paris Agreement. However, no shipping carbon mitigation policies are proposed for the world high sea regions, which results in carbon intensive shipping activities on high seas. In this paper, we propose a Geographic-based Emission Estimation Model (GEEM) to estimate shipping GHG emission patterns on high sea regions. The results indicate that annual shipping CO2-e emissions on high seas reach 211.60 million metric tonnes in 2019, accounting for about one-third of all shipping emissions globally and exceeding annual GHG emissions of countries such as Spain. The average emission from shipping activities on high seas is growing at approximately 7.26% per year, which far surpasses the global shipping emission growth rate of 2.23%. We propose the implementation policies on each high seas region with respect to the main emission driver of each high seas identified from our results. Our policy evaluation results show that carbon mitigation policies could reduce 25.46 and 54.36 million tonnes CO2-e in the primary intervention stage and overall intervention stage respectively, with 12.09% and 25.81% reduction rates in comparison to the 2019 annual high seas shipping GHG emission.","manuscriptTitle":"The Climate Impact of High Seas Shipping","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2022-01-28 14:24:46","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-1300753/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"c350d7a2-62da-4d86-93ae-9a900d66e027","owner":[],"postedDate":"January 28th, 2022","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2022-05-11T10:07:03+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2022-01-28 14:24:46","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-1300753","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-1300753","identity":"rs-1300753","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"WrCJVZZCHTDjtuVLN7oU0","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}