THE NEW TRADE WINDS

Global freight depends on huge, dirty container ships. Now a team of French shipbuilders wants to reinvent the tradition of sail-powered cargo vessels

- Wendell Steavenson

Last March, the whole world saw one of the largest cargo ships in existence - 400 metres long, weighing 265,000 tonnes, loaded with 20,000 shipping containers - get stuck in the Suez canal. For six days, tiny tugs tried to nudge the Ever Given off a sandbar. Waiting at both ends of the canal were more than 300 cargo ships and tankers, carrying petrol, semiconductors, microchips, scrunchie hair bands, sneakers, hand-held travel steamers, ice-cream-makers, novelty socks and electric milk-frothers. As the global supply chain ground to a halt, we became aware that 90% of everything in our homes clothes, appliances, food - has, at some point, been transported by sea.

Cargo ships burn some of the dirtiest oil going, known as bunker. Made from the sludgy leftovers of petrol refining, it is full of sulphur; when it burns it gives off carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide and sulphur dioxide. Container ports are consequently wreathed in smog. Shipping accounts for 2%-3% of global carbon emissions, but it also damages the environment in other ways. Ships regularly dump garbage and contaminated bilge water into the ocean, and underwater noise pollution disrupts the life cycles of fish, whales and dolphins.

While other industries are turning to alternative fuels, shipping has lagged behind. The International Maritime Organization, the UN agency that oversees the shipping industry, has drawn up plans to reduce carbon dioxide emissions of the global cargo fleet. But many observers consider the targets unambitious and toothless. "They're a sham... window dressing," one shipping journalist told me.