Transcripts For DW DocFilm 20190817

Believe. Cruise ships are like the celebrity sons of our pools. Iraq the year more luxury liners and. The industry is booming. German tourists go on cruises all year round even in the winter. Should just i like getting to see different places at once without having to unpack and repack my bags or maybe you know theres all these bars and 17 restaurants but you always have your home right with you. But the ocean giants just glamorous they will say harmful to the environment there exhaust fumes contain sulfa nitrogen oxides and salt particles people are now becoming more aware of the problem. Because its terrible were from essen in essence clean now but that wasnt. Always the case of the People Living on the coast always used to have clean fresh air now its the other way around its the sort of work that. Cruise operators have responded to the growing criticism and saying their vessels have now become more environmentally friendly but tough they really. Its december he environment on the baltic sea ever since Cruise Ship Companies began offering more when to delist the hobby he is busy even during the cold months. Germans on europes top cruise ship customers with over 2000000 passengers in 2017 and asked the business increases so does the air pollution it causes we 1st visited on a mundane 2014 when we spoke with local residents like Magdalena Fleming 5 years on when meeting her again magdalena region a move to the namenda for the clean air crews operators have been promising ships with clean exhaust fumes for years now we asked magdalena whether she feels theyve kept that promise recently said. They havent gotten any cleaner im so angry and this video a little bring it up from time to time and you believe them you think the ships are finally going to get cleaner but then Nothing Happened simply because the adverse gets all talk. But as. The newspapers are full of it but nobodys taking any action ok now left us. Dream boats and their dirty air what a cruise operators doing about it. This is for. The port city on monday era in the Atlantic Ocean just north of the Canary Islands down here is a popular destination for winter cruises. Most passengers on board are german tourists. We asked actually 3 days to join us on this trip hes one of the worlds leading experts on air pollution. Right now hes setting up his instruments to measure the cruise ships and missions. Excell fleet of a she used to head the department for transport annoy the German Federal Environment Agency u b a and now regularly advises governments and environmental organizations. Like all larger ships cruise liners emit pollutants into the air. The Floating Hotels need electricity 24 hours a day including when they are at port they get that energy from fuel generators. The cruising Lines International association or clear says it has recently adopted the exhaust gas cleaning systems e. G. C m s the association has reportedly fitted 111 of the 253 cruise ships in its fleet with the system. Just how effective are the filters to find out. Will be monitoring emissions on 3 separate days. The equipment he uses measures nitrogen oxides so that sulfur dioxide and ultra fine particles. A cruise ship is approaching the harbor is exhaust plume is still in only faintly visible axle for a delicious particularly interested in the amount of fine particles it contains 3 cruise ships have now docked at port. Even at a distance axel fraser makes a quick meant his able to measure the particulates matter of the crew ships a minute but the wind direction keeps changing so he cant say for sure which pollutants the coming from which. The portable device detects 65000 particles thats 3 times more than on some streets in germany where driving has already been banned. But this level is typical for busy small harbors like here. Here again theres only room for 3 ships are dark here strongly 3 ships are here but in other ports like barcelona and abroad not good manners of up to 7 ships can dock each day. The cruise industry just not consider a one off measurements like this to be significant yet the cruise operators when provide us with more detailed information despite our request neither kenya nor the 2 big German Companies aida and toohey provided us with pollution levels. Axel freight of asia was in banda munda in 2013 to measure the and pollution caused by cruise ships for the documentary series 45 minutes his film raised a lot of awareness for the problem. Tourists sought out this seaside resort for its team and that these days even the pedestrian zone has a pollution level similar to a busy traffic intersection. In this quarter final were measuring ultra fine particles that are smaller than 300 not a meters this extremely small matter can penetrate deep into the lungs. In some cases this can have fatal consequences the particles also come from the ships exhaust the engines are powered with diesel or heavy oil. What kind of fuel is heavy oil. The keel water police explained it well in 2009 in a document. Find a public broadcaster not to like one from. Shams. Just use well this is an english crude oil from the fortys and or crude oil from the north sea. This is the stuff everyone is after on this is all their stuff the crude oil contains lots of components each one can be sold better separately as high as thats why crude oil is refined. And it often that the Refinery Crude Oil gets broken down into its components is there are gas components liquid components and also solid components and im in at the end of this process so theres this leftover we hear that they can no longer be refined and this is what power ships come on down were trying to shift or does this just sort. When i turn it upside down nothing happens thats how dense it is at Room Temperature its like a road surface this is the stuff ships run on. No matter whether a ship is powered by heavy oil or diesel exhaust fumes will always contain 4 main pollutants. Carbon dioxide the Greenhouse Gas that majorly contributes to global warming. Which you may know from. Its also affects marine life. Ringback nitrogen oxides also known as and ex they made headlines during the Diesel Scandal and are especially harmful to children pregnant women and sick people and finally atmospheric aerosol particles many studies have shown that ultra fine particulates matter is most dangerous and. Heart attacks and strokes. Is a chemist investigating the effects of fine particulate matter from ship exhaust fiends. In his research he collaborates with other chemists physicians and biologists from the German Research center for environmental health. They use a special method to show how particulate matter is harmful to humans the research is direct exhaust fumes from a ships engine into their lap and expose it to living. Human lung cells. Here is the exposure that most experiments to date added the pollutants to a solution and you cells that were also in a solution. Thats not natural because lung cells are normally exposed. Thats their characteristic feature and we managed to simulate that with this machine. Here vessels are out to be open so to speak and take in air pollution like real dogs would and. This is to date the closest. Research has come to faithfully simulating the impact of ship exhaust on living human cells. In other 5 generally speaking fine particles cause pulmonary information if youre exposed to particular matter over long periods of time that inflammation can become chronic chronic inflammation can be to cardiac diseases and permanent pulmonary inflammation which in turn can trigger or aggravate diseases like asthma c o p d. P d. Its an invisible threat numerous studies have found the 10 nostrils only catch and filter particles larger than 10 micro meters. Ultra fine particles are much smaller than even 2. 5 micro meters with no barrier to stop them they can settle deep in our lungs. Then they can trigger dangerous inflammation they can even enter our blood stream with severe consequences Heart Disease cardiac arrest or stroke if the particles reach our brain. Simmonds colleagues can identify each individual component of particulates matter in ships exhaust fumes this lets them determine its precise effect on the human body up until a few years ago research suggested emissions from heavy oil are much more harmful to humans than diesel but more recent studies paint a picture. Yeah i mean lets leave looked at the number of different processes over the past 10 years anything from emissions from car engines to wood combustion this ship emissions have been found to have the biggest effect of war regardless of whether they use diesel or heavy oil. In the long run the heavy oil has a larger cost of jenny confect but they both have equally high acute effects. In their rust belt lab the scientists can also measure pollutants emitted by ships as seen for this they suck the outside into into the lab on windy days. The instruments are so sensitive that they can pick up pollutants emitted from ever 100 kilometers away. The team uses shipping routes and time tables to determine which vessel its from. 29000 on the banks of the elbow in hamburg. X. The fate of his hand to measure the pollutant levels emitted by a cruise ship his portable device is ultra sensitive. The senior you are left to his foreign matter in the air here even though the ship was far away when it was passing us the wind blew the other way but even at a distance of one kilo. I still get a reading of over 20000. 00 particles now and there is more not region dioxide to about. 20000. 00 aerosol particles thats roughly twice the average level in hamburg and the wind wasnt even blowing in the right direction. Because no filter the exhaust was being blown to the other side of the other by the people on that bank were exposed to the fumes. Magdalena flemming from them and continues to worry about the health. She suffers from asthma last year alone she saw 199 cruise ships docked here. Im not sure if its still healthy for me here. Its just getting worse. And im concerned for my children and my grandchildren. I already have 3 great grandchildren. And how ditty is the egg. This ships chacha tells us that all the cruise ships operated for them always that hit the official regulations in the baltic sea and elsewhere. Its shipping company says they are striving to operate their ships as cleanly as possible but installing a filter isnt possible for technical reasons. We also spoke with several passengers. Well i know cruise ships are dirty but i dont know the exact numbers. But sure theyre big polluters john section or thats from where does that worry you most that worries me a lot yes but youre still taking a cruise im still taking a cruise. Of bush in hamburg some roads have been blocked due to car pollution but here in the harbor the ships let their engines run day and night and theyre filthy you can see the black clouds above them blast out. Its terrible there from s n n s n its clean now but that wasnt always the case People Living on the coast always used to have a clean fresh air now its the other way around. In the German Climate Computing Center in hamburg researchers have calculated how am pollutants have to spin us through northern germany the results were saying bring. Fine particles from ships on the health risks they bring with them have spread across the entire north of germany. And cruise line isnt just making matters worse. I was shocked at how deeply ship emissions impacted areas not directly by the coast sometimes the effects could be seen hundreds of kilometers inland one kilometer long and thats. What we were taken aback when we realised just how much came from ship traffic before we thought sure there are 10000 ships sailing in the north sea but what damage can they possibly do compared to 50000000 cars. But if you look at the pollutants if you added how much is a little per kilometer per ton of goods if you can we tell you find its much higher with the ships than with cars and. Most people dont know that even further inland the air we breathe is being polluted by ships out to sea. Cruise Companies Say they have taken action to become more environmentally sustainable. This is kill at the end of january 29th team where a new to a ship is being presented. Just like the other operators this large cruise ship is equipping its new ships with socalled self a scrubbers and catalytic converters theyre meant to reduce alpha dioxide emissions by up to 99 percent the nitrogen oxides by up to 75 percent the additions are also meant to significantly decrease the amount of particulate matter released into the atmosphere but its hard to tell just how effective the equipment is. The Cruise Companies stayed vague. Because we achieve excellent values with the aftertreatment of emissions some are even better than marine diesel values. The Company Office similarly generic statements 2 thirds of the questions submitted in writing so it remains unclear whether self described as can actually reduce health risks. You have to distinguish between environmental and Health Impacts sulfur emissions are known from acid rain i could be very harmful to the environment but the effect of sulphur on our health is rather limited. From 2020 onwards the level of south of permitted in ship fuel will be restricted to 0. 5 percent that might sound good at 1st but 0. 5 percent is still 500. 00 times higher than what is permitted in car fuel. On the baltic sea the sulfur content cap is set at 0 point one percent that still 100. 00 times more than car fuel. Nevertheless shipping companies are looking to scrap has to remain commercially viable. While because strips from heavy oil as it burns companies can keep relying on cheap fuel and simply washed it with scribus. Back to the port of. X. L. Freighter ace is trying to measure whether ships here have scrubbers. But again wind conditions are unfavorable. The mourner scrubber works well or can reduce offer dioxide emissions by about 8590 percent but other issues like ultra fine particles remain unchanged thats why 2 it was braised a bit more than the other cruise ship manufacturers because they got a little better but theyre still far from good words and enough money. In january 29 teen one of the boats influentials home was to ease mine shift ainus. The ship is reportedly equipped with an exhaust gas purification system. According to the company it filters out 60 percent of atmospheric aerosol particles emitted. We asked whether this also included ultra fine particulates matter but we didnt receive an answer nor will we provide data with any details in mission values. Part of the problem is the International Maritime organization imo. The United Nations agency has so far failed to set a limit for particulates matter emissions. This means its up to experts like axel free to place to point out the risks its 4 am in from china and axel frankly his waiting for the i need to know about the ships technology is a willed novelty weve all seen we want to see what the emissions of aidas new ship are alaska its a completely new ship powered by a liquefied natural gas wells so we Mission Levels should be considerably below those of ordinary cruise ships limits and or for sure. Aida nova is the 1st cruise ship in the worlds to run with the new technology in theory it does not emits nitrogen oxides sulfa or particulate matter into the air which acts afraid of ice will have to wait for another day to verify those claims. The wind is keeping the exhaust gasses out at sea away from the measuring instruments is the wind salaam favorable. For. What youre going to recall this weekend. The ship is also equipped to be able to run on ordinary fuel. Burns a precondition the ship can also run on diesel it has to turn exam board so it would have been good to see what i eat is using one is this far away from hamburg. For now hell have to wait a day later informed us that it wasnt possible to measure the air quality on the ship that day they said they would invite axel faith based on board to measure soon though but it remains to be seen when that will actually happen. And at 1st loans i need to know if this chimney looks clean enough. Other Cruise Companies have announced they want to follow suit. Not to we have. The cruise line wants to do without to liquefy the natural gas for the time being there are currently only a few ports that offer refueling possibilities. Do passengers even care about the natural gas technology. For months i dont think about it it is important. We always will i think this is the 1st ship with liquid natural gas lets see how things develop i think its good i do 3 sets it certainly affected my decision i wanted to be on this ship. As its like quieter. Or eco friendly yeah that too is protecting the environment a factor in your decision no ready for being honest not really well with a ive heard about it. But it wasnt the deciding factor for us. One problem is that madeira doesnt yet have a fueling point for liquid natural gas that is large enough for the i need a nova. So tankers like the condescend have to travel over 1500 nautical miles from rotterdam to the high atlantic seas to refuel the new i need a ship its a long and expensive journey. And i need a ship is being serviced in hamburg according to Company Figures as the i need a fleet consumed over 50 percent more heavy oil and diesel in 2017 compared to 2011 the cruise line says more and more of its ships are being equipped with quote modern exhaust gas purification systems but it remains unclear which systems these entailed exactly and whether they also filter out harmful ultra fine particles. It seems northern germany still enjoys the potion of this of its not tree crews linus. Hardly anyone protests. Hamburg is even planning a 4th cruise terminal it will be the 2nd one in the half in City District right by a residential area. Meanwhile in other european cities more and more citizens and politicians feel that the cruise line industry has got big enough. The city of venice is a unesco World Heritage site and a popular cruise destination in europe. Cruise line is ponce straight by the citys top attractions. But they dont only block the view for locals they will say pollute the air. And yes more than 450. 00 of the ships still arrive here every year bringing around 1500000. 00 tourists. The undertow created by large cruise liners alone is a risk for the old city which was built on wooden poles. A unesco study presented to the Italian Government cited these waves caused by water traffic as one of the major threats to the city. Axle fleet base was in venice in 2014 he used a handheld device to measure atmospheric aerosol particles my measured over 100000 particles per cubic centimeter of there once was even over 200000. 00 thats extremely hard and the yard is already polluted. Many venetians have had enough they formed a committee called no kindy navi which means no big ships together with one of its members axel freighter trying to measure the air quality right in the wake of one of the cruise line as. Yet but the cabin near the state Police Stopped their small boat after taking down the names and addresses the office has full bade any further measuring attempts i. But it seems the protests in venice have had an effect the number of cruise ships has started to decrease and as of 2021 only smaller cruise ships will be in. Now to enter the famous to decca can now. Venice isnt the only place where the cruise boom has faced backlash another one is no way. The country is one of the Top Destinations for cruises from germany. The guy hunger fuel what another unesco World Heritage site is especially popular. If you want to tracks many cruise tourists. Its picture perfect. But the high mountains surrounding the narrow fjords mean exhaust fumes cannot disperse. During the shooting for this film have that lloyd and i need to wait in the fuel and. But the problem of concentrated pollution because with all cruise operators. The guy running a field isnt the only case like this well done it fama and as for time has his fun in fly on the famous sonny a few awards. Show there are new factories in sight but that doesnt mean the end is a waste. We often have very still dice that we often have 2 or 3 or 4 ships and is a very still day and the 4 ships plus all the express both of the ferries and the and the buses and the cars and the sort of this is the sum of all this if its really that slow the air is absolutely terrible to the brain and its the smell the smell of sour used to beat you up cross now the smell is crude or or if you you can burn fuel. To know we can in parliament decided that from 2026 onwards only completely a mission free ships would be allowed into the fields then diesel and heavy oil for ship fuel will be banned completely. Resistance to the booming cruise industry is also growing elsewhen. Amsterdam is demanding more money from cruise ships protests taking place in dubrovnik and an american cruise ship captain was put on trial and pollution charges in mustang. And environment. And measuring station was set up in 2015 but not in the residential area. Germanys ministry for the environment provides no information on fine particulate matter it also claims that knowledge of particulate matter environment is within range. The situation is similar in ham the. Hit to the ministry for environment tries to appease Health Concerns by saying that according to the measuring stations by the haba the levels are within the compliance range. Does not mean that the German Government thinks cruise ships pose no risk to health. One of the measuring stations is located in the middle of the huge industrial port area like so freight and each takes a closer look. The show me seems every pretty far away from the water distance dilutes the air so there is less to measure but the real problem is that nobody lives here nobody walks here so if im trying to measure the impact of pollution is having on Peoples Health then i cant do that from this point its going to hit the fish to the next measuring station near the outearn a cruise terminal is tucked away behind told residential building the accelerator he says this location isnt ideal for measuring air pollution levels either yet hamburgs department of environment states the levels again in range. Just one problem the e. U. Has set a limit for weight of particulate matter in the air many experts argue that this form of measurement alone is not enough to determine Actual Health risks. Launch heavy particles are usually filtered out. Its the small particles that are most harmful even just a few of the tiny particles can damage our health that is why a limit value based on way to alone doesnt provide sufficient information. Approach to measuring particulate matter adequate. For foreign particles which are very very small have no way to go and thats why theyre so problematic because they can penetrate deep into our lungs and into our brain and these are really the things that should be measured but only researchers or environmental organizations do thats unacceptable. The official limits by white a 1000000 indication for atmospheric aerosol particles in order to determine Actual Health risks axle feet of a smashes the amount of particles in the air not their total weight. Hes not the only one skeptical of official measurements prestigious. It makes no sense from our point of view measuring the number of particles and so that absolutely necessary. So i think your thirtys are aware that they could achieve much more with measuring find a particular matter or even chemically determining the particles composition as unget cellphone parts you can see in the. Us like they dont have the funds to implement the change and the directives havent been updated. Since its new this year so far there is no official body that regularly measures far in particular matter history so you have to rely on measurements done by environmental associations or by people like me or to exceed the ministry for environment in mechanical for common is the 1st one that wants to measure fine particulate matter pollution. In chalets make hoshi 9 authorities do not have current data on evolution from ships and cruise ships in particular. The office responsible says it does not expect limits are being exceeded. Nonetheless the measuring station for pollution by ships is planned for 2019 by the keel of florida. Trust only just money its battling is it and the federal state surrounded by the sea as they say there are no stations recording pollution by ships and that all that gets done is what is operationally prescribed not what is actually necessary to protect Peoples Health visual images i find that frightening. The mouth of the elbe it in there with saxony where freighters and cruise ships also abound. The ministry of the environment in one over has said the following regarding evolution ship emissions evidently playing a role in certain areas but they are not seen to be a relevant factor in achieving equality targets in lower saxony. Other places take a more modern approach. Every time a ferry from the shipping company come on line from key. Arrives here and also now it gets connected to a power socket and modernization introduced in 2011. And soon as the ship is stationary a robot secures the plant. The shipping company opted to pure it shipped this way so that this city Diesel Engine can be switched off while in harbor. The reason why we harvested rosol is that color line said that we are going to do this they chose that this is the way to do it and they also looked into the investment in it but it was also very important to them to be the 1st to show that this is possible and that its important to now give keys and hung bird. At the port of also we want to. We want to challenge and say go for it. In hamburg only one of the 3 cruise terminals has an on shore power supply and only since 2017. The Construction Costs of around 10000000 euros were paid by taxpayers not the cruise ship company. An employee of the Ford Administration demonstrates how the device works directly because so far only one shipping company aida has used the key with on shore power and only 20 times in all of last year around 90 percent of all cruise ships do not choose the environmentally move friendly option of power although many of them could another problem is that some ships are too long well the power terminal is too small recently aida only used power from 8 am to 10 30 am then it was switched off because from 10 30 am onward electricity becomes more expensive. Were trying from a technical point of view its not difficult to build more on shore power stations and other ports. Have also photo just a big challenge we face is that the price of diesel which is crucial when electricity is being produced on board has fallen significantly since 2014. In 2014 the Business Case for on shore power was profitable but now it is and because of the drop in diesel prices. Right now there is basically no money to be made from on shore power stations across europe and its cheaper for shipping companies to produce electricity on board with diesel. And the other 2 have a crusade on full power stations on to vailable for the time being is he said that this will change in the next few years. But in the meantime ships continue to pass on the option of using on chilled power. Since the station was finished 139. 00 crew ships capable of using on szell power passed by the station without plugging in. So far the Hamburg Senate has done nothing to change this. It was different in all slave. Ship operators ban the costs for the power supply. Our politicians are pushing out there wanting us to go forward with this investment because they find that its important for the city and also its also trying to bring because one of europes a green sit is. So theyre pushing us to try and find a solution. There are plans to offer on full power for cruise ships. On amanda however the city in Port Companies still hope that the responsible federal government will lead with the electricity price if possible for the entire. Dang. Mrs fleming has been listening to this argument back in full for years. Until a new treaty so again were the ones who are being kept waiting at the moment the conversation has fallen quiet but it comes up time and again thats what bothers me because nothing ever gets done. With on show power yes. The cruise industry says cruise lines bring income through tourism to port cities. In banda no way an expert from the business tested this claim. Saying lawson used to advise cruise lines now hes professor at the university of baghdad where we have started this extensively over many years and we have data from social show for visitors to our poll and we do know that the people who live the nice mommy and my burger and thats the crucial truest even the backpacker or the comp or even the german. Home more part time our lives for at least twice as much money per person per day as the cruise ship for which. According to research by the university of bag and passengers from all cruise line a spend an average of 41. 00 euro is per person per visit on land. 2017 Cruise Ship Companies estimated that theyre passing just spent 48 euros a day on land in germany. In hamburg the chamber of commerce calculated that in 2012 cruise tourism for the city around 540. 00 euros per passenger. However the Hamburg Chamber of commerce study included Additional Data including figures from the port anniversary. Hamburg zora turnover of 270000000 euros in 2012 with cruises the citys. Politicians argued these figures justify the taxpayer funding costs for terminals and power stations. But does the cruise boom also mean higher tax revenues. In the case of the muppets to aida the research is complicated. Thats because i needed belongs to the Italian Company costa which in turn is a subsidiary of the u. S. Cruise group carnival. Kind of a list listed on the New York Stock Exchange in the us a Bad Companies are subject to strict complication requirements. The f. C. C. The us Stock Exchange Supervisory Authority is when you can find data on aida in the many documents filed by the eda Parent Company carnival it says. That i need to is exempt from German Corporation tax. I knew joe was subject to a tax rate of 6 percent in italy. This recently dropped a 5. 5 percent. By aegis response. To ships of the aida fleet sail under the italian flag. It goes without saying that we not only comply with tax and feel obligations in germany and italy but anywhere else we travel to in accordance with Respective National legislation. We are driving engine for regional economies and also for maritime sites such as germany. Similar to aida other cruise line as also enjoyed tax concessions in their foreign home ports. This way they can legally reduce tax payments in germany. The corporations are aware of the environmental problems they say they are open to new technologies and marine fuels but the exhaust their dream ships them it remains nebulous because operators do not publish precise data. From told the. We found that its just as dirty as it was before as far as the particles are concerned so far weve seen no significant improvement in ultra fine particles. It seems that finance it will be left up to shipping companies whether they want to consider health risks as well as profit. On not. Moving. What to do with old cardboard boxes do what a french artist does and build yourself a city. A little a godsend shows us how. Is our project in la is and is summer olympics is 5. Year old in 30 minutes on d w. 2 the. Cut. Thank you thank you thank you thank. You. This is b. W. News live from hong kong on alert for another weekend of violent antigovernment protests are growing fears of a chinese crackdown as painting masses on the vehicles on the border well get the latest from our correspondent live in hong kong also coming up was a struggle to join one of germanys top boys choir as the court rules theres no place in the hollowed ranks of singles for a girl. Plus the bundesliga its often enough