Ahead of next week’s session of the Nordic Council taking place in Stockholm, the Clean Arctic Alliance has called on Nordic governments to adopt a resolution on polar fuels during the meeting, and together commit to support an International Maritime Organization (IMO) regulation that would require cleaner maritime fuels, which would result in lower emissions of black carbon by ships when operating in the Arctic.
The Nordic Council is the largest political summit in the Nordic Region, bringing together prime ministers, heads of government, ministers, and 87 parliamentarians from across the region every year.The 77th Session of the Nordic Council will take place at Sweden’s Riksdag between 27 and 30 October 2025.
The deadline for concrete proposals for such a regulation to be submitted to the thirteenth session of the IMO’s technical committee that addresses pollution prevention and response (PPR13, February 2026) is December 5th.
“Ahead of a crucial meeting of the IMO next February, the Clean Arctic Alliance is calling for the Member States of the International Maritime Organization to develop and adopt a mandatory regulation which would require that only polar fuels can be used by shipping in the Arctic”, said Dr Sian Prior, Lead Advisor to the Clean Arctic Alliance. “A resolution on polar fuels adopted by Nordic governments next week would send a strong message to IMO Member States that action is urgently needed to protect the Arctic from the impacts of shipping emissions.”
“Black carbon is a climate superpollutant produced when fossil fuels are burned”, said Mr. Prior. “Black carbon has a disproportionate impact because it both heats the atmosphere – and when released from ship exhausts and when near to the Arctic it settles onto snow and ice, speeding up the melting and exposing darker land and sea beneath, which continue to absorb more heat. It is the loss of the planet’s reflectivity – or albedo – which is contributing to the fast pace of warming seen in the Arctic.”
“Black carbon emissions from ships burning oil-based fuels have more than doubled in the last decade, yet a simple and easy solution is to require shipping to use widely available distillate fuels with lower black carbon emissions when operating in and near to the Arctic”, noted Mr. Prior.
The melting snow and ice exposes darker areas of land and water and these dark patches then absorb further heat from the sun and the reflective capacity of the planet’s polar ice caps is severely reduced. More heat in the polar systems – results in increased melting. This is the loss of the albedo effect.
Declines in sea ice extent and volume are leading to a burgeoning social and environmental crisis in the Arctic, while cascading changes are impacting global climate and ocean circulation.
Scientists have high confidence that processes are nearing points beyond which rapid and irreversible changes on the scale of multiple human generations are possible.
Scientists say it is now too late to save summer Arctic sea ice, and research has shown that “preparations need to be made for the increased extreme weather across the northern hemisphere that is likely to occur as a result.”
Black carbon also has a negative impact on human health including premature death and harmful effects on the cardiovascular system (heart, blood and blood vessels), and recent research has found black carbon particles in the body tissues of fetuses, following inhalation by pregnant mothers.
The need to reduce emissions of black carbon because of both the climate and health impacts has been long recognized. On land, considerable effort has been made to ban dirtier fuels in power stations, to install diesel particulate filters on land-based transport, and to improve the burning of dry wood – all to reduce emissions of black carbon and improve air quality. However, at sea the same efforts have not yet been made.
