Cargo ships account for 3% of global CO2 emissions: https://phys.org/news/2018-12-cargo-ships-emitting-boatloads...

Cargo ships also burn fuel with depressingly low pollution standards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_oil#Bunker_fuel

The pollution problems with bunker fuel are primarily local and short-lived, however, whereas CO2 emissions spread through the entire atmosphere and stay there for a very long time.

According to https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikescott/2019/06/28/shipping-s...

> Shipping accounts for up to 3% of global emissions and 10% of transport emissions – roughly the same as aviation

Shipping emissions equalling aviation emissions is surprisingly high, to me.

The volume of sea cargo is far higher than air cargo.

That was all aviation, not just air cargo.

OT: This website is on a new (to me) level in the cookie wars. After I "change my preferences", which is already hidden behind purposely confusing wording, it has to "save my changed preferences", with a progress counter, that seems to get stuck on 90-something percent for a long time, with a big, handy "cancel" button visible.

It's hard to interpret this as anything other than maliciousness.

It is about per ton emissions. Ship tons >>> aviation.

> Shipping by ocean is surprisingly low in carbon emissions.

Surprisingly low emissions per amount of cargo transported, yes. But the absolute amount of emissions is still huge and the amount of cargo keeps growing, so I don't think this measure is very relevant.

Cargo ships are better for the environment than shipping the same amount of goods from China to the US via trucks. But as the latter isn't possible anyway, this is not a very tangible benefit.

What would benefit the environment was shipping less goods.