Cruising towards climate disaster? A cruise holiday’s greenhouse emissions are found to outstrip those of a return flight and hotel stay
- In a comparison of carbon footprints between cruise holidays and staying in a hotel plus air travel, the ships were found to have twice the emissions
- Cruise ships also spew black carbon, which absorbs sunlight, traps heat on the ground and speeds up the melting of glaciers at the poles
When Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas embarks on its first official voyage on January 27, the journey is sure to make waves.
The world’s largest cruise ship, the Icon is more than 1,000 feet (304 metres) long and weighs in at around 250,000 gross registered tons. It has 20 decks; 40 restaurants, bars and lounges; seven pools; six waterslides; and a 55-foot waterfall. Royal Caribbean says its boat will usher in “a new era of vacations”.
Maybe so. But the Icon is also a doubling down on a negative aspect of cruising’s current era: greenhouse gas emissions.
In 2022, Bryan Comer, director of the marine programme at the International Council on Clean Transportation, examined the carbon footprint of cruising compared to a hotel stay plus air travel – since cruises are effectively floating hotels.
His analysis found that a person taking a United States cruise for 1,200 miles (1,931 kilometres) on the most efficient cruise line would be responsible for roughly 1,100 pounds (500kg) of CO², compared with 518 pounds for a round-trip flight of the same distance and a stay in a four-star hotel.
In other words: taking a cruise generates “about double the amount of total greenhouse gas emissions” as flying, Comer says.
