Cunard Cruises spokesman
“We do get people crossing the Atlantic because they don’t want to fly. Every ship has to meet environmental targets and the Queen Mary II has a zero-discharge policy.”
Climate Care, carbon offsetting company
“According to our calculations, a cruiseliner such as Queen Mary 2 emits 0.43kg of CO2 per passenger mile, compared with 0.257kg for a long-haul flight (even allowing for the further damage of emissions being produced in the upper atmosphere). Sometimes our instincts about what’s best for the environment are wrong and this shows the importance of calculating the actual carbon emissions from different activities and making our decisions - both as individuals and government policy - based on the real numbers. We would certainly welcome the cruise liner industry taking a closer look at their carbon footprint. As these figures show, it is not negligible.”
Richard Hammond, the Guardian's green travel columnist
"Quite aside from the carbon emissions, there is a high cost to the ocean. The cruise industry has a poor record in terms of waste water treatment and disposal, and therefore it has to clean up its act if it is to be considered as an environmentally friendly means of travel. The size of the industry is also crucial: cruising is the fastest growing sector of the travel industry. In 2003, 9.3 million passengers took a cruise while the International Eco-tourism Society projects that 17 million passengers will do so in 2010.”
Gwyn Topham, author of Overboard: the stories cruise lines don't want told
“Mile for mile, the carbon footprint for a cruise is worse - and many passengers will take planes to join a cruise. Since the big cruise lines were hit with massive fines in the US for polluting waters a few years ago, they have made improvements - but ships are not facing that same kind of scrutiny outside Alaska and California. The overall benefits to the ports of call are questionable. And while environmentalists do generally agree that new ships are greener, it takes a long time to adapt older ships and in many areas - such as cleaner fuel, better waste treatment systems - campaigners think cruise lines aren't doing nearly enough.”
Tricia Barnett, director of Tourism Concern
"It’s not greener, and it's a much broader issue than carbon emissions alone. Cruise ships are the ultimate all-inclusive holiday experience where everything is paid for before you board. So the benefits to locals when you dock are minimal, but they have to deal with the waste that the cruise ship leaves behind. While you're on board huge amounts of electricity will be used to provide everyone with the services they expect.”
Justin Francis, Responsible Travel
“You might naturally assume that a ship would emit less carbon dioxide than a long-haul flight but it’s not the case. On a typical one-week voyage a cruise ship generates more than 50 tonnes of garbage and a million tonnes of grey (waste) water, 210,000 gallons of sewage and 35,000 gallons of oil-contaminated water. Some of this is pumped into ocean and some treated.
The cultural impact of large numbers of tourists descending on, in some cases, small destinations has also been overlooked. People are after simple answers, simple solutions. But we’ve oversimplified it with flying: if people really want to reduce their carbon, they can make a larger difference by lagging their boiler or taking showers not baths, rather than cutting out a flight to somewhere which needs it.”
George Monbiot, environmental campaigner and author
“There are remarkably few figures. But George Marshall of the Climate Outreach Information Network has conducted a rough initial calculation for the Queen Elizabeth II. Cunard says the ship burns 433 tonnes of fuel a day, and takes six days to travel from Southampton to New York. If the ship is full, every passenger with a return ticket consumes 2.9 tonnes. A tonne of shipping fuel contains 0.85 tonnes of carbon, which produces 3.1 tonnes of carbon dioxide when it is burnt. Every passenger is responsible for 9.1 tonnes of emissions. Travelling to New York and back on the QEII, in other words, uses almost 7.6 times as much carbon as making the same journey by plane.”