Greece to tax cruise ships to protect islands as other countries eye carbon tax
Bar Harbor Town Council bucks worldwide trends clamping down on overtourism
BAR HARBOR, Sept. 10, 2024 - Greece became the latest destination to take action to reduce cruise ship visits. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Sunday cruise ship visitors to the islands of Santorini and Mykonos during the peak summer season will need to pay a tax of 20 euros during the busiest months.
Around the world, only the Town Council here seeks to weaken limits on cruise ship visitation. It wants to repeal a citizens enacted ordinance in 2022 to cap daily passenger visits to 1,000 a day which received worldwide coverage.
Another idea gaining momentum is a carbon tax on cruise ships. Such a tax would encourage cruise operators to switch to zero emission vessels, according to Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater. “We will work with our partners in Local Government to empower Councils to charge visiting cruise ships a levy. It will mean communities hosting cruise ships get the investment they deserve, and our aim would also be to encourage greener ships.
“One ship produces the same amount of carbon emissions as 12,000 cars; operators have been allowed to get away with polluting for too long. A cruise ship levy will empower councils to help tackle this global problem.”
The progressive shift is part of a global trend to cut down on emissions from the sector.
Europe’s most polluted port, Barcelona, announced a ban on cruise ships, while Norway will refuse to allow all but zero emission ships to sail its famous fjords in two years.
China unveiled its first battery-powered electric cruise ship last month. Scandinavian cruise line Hurtigruten says it will launch an AI-enabled, electric vessel with 164-foot tall retractable sails covered in solar panels by 2030.
According to VisitScotland, more than 800,000 passengers visited Scotland in 2019 with about 900 calls to port. Industry group Cruise Scotland have predicted numbers will rise to 1 million passengers this year.
Scottish Greens transport and environment spokesperson Mark Ruskell said:
“For all the benefits tourism brings, pressure on infrastructure, services and how lives of locals in port areas are impacted need properly targeted help.”
Mount Desert resident Ignacio Pessoa, former city attorney for Alexandria, VA., said the threat of a carbon tax led to the closing of the Potomac River Generating Station on Alexandria’s waterfront in October 2012.
The plant had been a significant source of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide air pollution for the region, according to Bill Skrabak, deputy director of Transportation and Environmental Services for the City of Alexandria. Much of this pollution blew across the Potomac River to Prince George’s County, Maryland.
In the debate over cruise ships in Bar Harbor, pollution is rarely mentioned. Only a handful of residents have consistently raised it.
The town’s climate emergency task force, which has more vacancies than regular members, has only pursued solar energy solutions. It has given cruise ships a huge pass.
So has the College of the Atlantic, which offers a single degree on “human ecology.” Yet, its faculty and staff regularly align themselves with cruise ship interests, as previously reported by the QSJ.
It has a whale watching program heavily reliant on the tour boats owned by Ocean Properties, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit against the citizens ordinance.
COA, on its website, stated, “Allied Whale would like to thank the Bar Harbor Whale Watch for their generous financial support and our long-term successful research partnership. The whale watch has been a key partner in assisting with the response and recovery of dead marine mammals.”
COA didn’t mention that ship strikes are a major cause of whale deaths.
As if to punctuate COA’s long record of pro-cruise ship activity, two COA staffers, Maya Caines and Zach Soares, recently voted in favor of repealing the citizens ordinance - Caines as a council member and Soares as a Planning Board member.
A large cruise ship can use up to 80,645 gallons of marine fuel per day, according to analysis by the University of Colorado Boulder. Marine fuels are variants of emissions-producing fossil fuels and therefore have a high carbon footprint.
Don’t expect any such studies to emanate from COA any time soon. Apparently COA’s definition of human ecology does not include the air we breathe.
Cruises are also a particularly carbon-intensive way to travel compared with many other types of holiday. The average CO2 emissions of a passenger on a cruise around Seattle are eight times higher than those of a tourist spending their holiday on land in Seattle, an analysis by the non-profit Friends of the Earth concluded.
Some of the ships which frequent Bar Harbor - Enchanted Princess, Zuiderdam - are among the worst polluters, according to Friends of the Earth, which rated Disney Wonder as the cleanest.
Town Manager James Smith recently said he didn’t support the 1,000-passenger cap ordinance because he didn’t want to see large polluting ships anchor in the harbor when they may unload only 1,000 persons.
So his solution was to allow more passengers - at least 3,200 - to disembark? Such is the tortured logic of the council proposal, Article 4, which will be decided by voters Nov. 5, the same day they go to the polls to decide whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will be a better steward of Mother Earth.
Speaking at a press conference a day after outlining his main economic policies for 2025, Greek prime minister Mitsotakis clarified that excessive tourism was only a problem in a few destinations.
"Greece does not have a structural overtourism problem... Some of its destinations have a significant issue during certain weeks or months of the year, which we need to deal with," he said.
"Cruise shipping has burdened Santorini and Mykonos and this is why we are proceeding with interventions," he added, announcing the levy.
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The problem with current Bar Harbor Town Council is that they lack a world view, they are NOT serving the community and they lack VISION.............. combined that with the College of Atlantic and other academic institutions who will not speak out or help guide common sense solutions. What we are left with is a government controlled by lawsuits and big businesses corrupting our ecosystem and town government. Vote no on the Cruise ship ordinance seems like a good message to send to this council, in my opinion.
It's all about the families who will starve to death from a lack enormous cruise ships in Bar Harbor right?