These SLiMDOE crossings create a smoke screen in the ocean, and in the air, within our EEZ. At a given moment a chain of 110 moving vessels consisting of world’s largest 350,000 MT tankers, 350,000 MT bulk carries and 24,000 TEU container ships (each of these vessels are over 400 meters long and could house ten soccer fields on-board), creates a smoke screen in the ocean stretching over 500 miles with in our EEZ. Simultaneously a chain of 123 world’s largest 500 seat aircraft too, create a smoke screen stretching over 500 miles at a given moment. Both acting in unison create a smoke corridor equivalent to the full length and breadth of our small coastal nation. It is estimated that foreign carriers burn 8 to 10 billion tons of fossil fuel within our EEZ annually offloading Green House Gases (GHG) and damaging our economic resources.
The current estimates of the social cost of carbon are over US $50 per ton. While this is the most robust and credible figure available, it does not yet include all the widely recognized and accepted scientific and economic impacts of climate change. Based on this, the cost per ton of CO2 is (50*3.66) = US $ 183. However, based on Landmark carbon capture project onboard a Stena Bulk tanker reported on March 22, 2023, this project aims to establish a pathway to reduce the cost of CO2 capture to 150 Euro/tCO2. Using the lower of them, we could use $ 150 per ton of CO2 as the “economic cost”.
Based on 8 million tons of marine bunker fuel being burnt per year in Sri Lankan waters by ships the CO2 load could be estimated to be (8*3.2) = 25.6 million tons of CO2 emitted per year (based on per kg of marine diesel, 3.2 kg of CO2 will be emitted). The estimated damage to the citizens of Sri Lanka therefore could be estimated at US $ 3.84 billion per annum (25.6*150/1000).