MEDITERRANEAN EMISSION CONTROL AREA ENTERS INTO FORCE
On 1 May, the Mediterranean Sea officially became an Emission Control Area, according to IMO regulations, where stricter controls are in place to minimise air pollution from ships, notably sulphur oxides emissions leading to sea and land acidification and contributing to fine dust, which is linked to respiratory and cardiovascular conditions.
Ships sailing through this ECA must comply with stricter sulphur content limits than those set by the global standard, using fuel limited to 0.1% sulphur content compared to 0.5% outside ECAs, significantly reducing air pollution. Ships can also use any alternative fuel including LNG or methanol to comply with the ECA. Alternatively, ships can be fitted with scrubbers that remove SOx from the exhaust gases. Open loop scrubbers are, however, banned from many coastal areas as these systems allow sulphur removed from atmospheric emissions to then be dumped into the ocean.
The Med SOx ECA is the fifth designated Emission Control Area, alongside the Baltic Sea area; the North Sea area; the North American area (coastal areas off the United States and Canada); and the United States Caribbean Sea ECA (around Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands). In 2024, IMO designated two further ECAs: the Canadian Arctic and the Norwegian Sea. In April 2025, MEPC 83 approved a proposal to designate the North-East Atlantic as an Emission Control Area.
Source: European Commission, IMO