Environmental and Economic Analysis on Sailing from Taiwan through Arctic Passages

Maritime transportation is a key means for Taiwan to transport the cargo in the global trade. Global warming has led to two new navigation channels for arctic passages, the Northeast Passage and Northwest Passage. Research has increasingly addressed the unknown economic costs of these passages, and the increase of navigational activity in the Arctic Ocean has also resulted in CO2 emissions. Taiwan has one of the leading merchant fleets in the world; however, study on this aspect in Taiwan is not available. We use Port of Taipei, Taiwan as the starting place to compare the two arctic shipping routes and developed a model to determine the shipping costs and as well the CO2 emission. The results showed that a voyage from the Port of Taipei to the Port of Rotterdam through the Northeast Passage would be 2107 nautical miles shorter than voyage along the current sea route to Europe but 2% to 3% costlier; CO2 emissions would be 3% lower. Sailing to New York Harbor through the Northwest Passage would shorten voyages by 2459 nautical miles and reduce both costs and CO2 emissions by 7%. Therefore, if tolls were lowered or sailing speeds increased, sailing through the Arctic Passages could be a great opportunity for shipping industries and enable Taiwan to develop its shipping economy while protecting the marine environment.