World's largest cruise ship is a climate liability

Despite the Icon being more efficient, liners are energy hogs catering to vacationers

When Royal Caribbean's Icon of the Seas embarks on its first official voyage on Jan 27, the journey is sure to make waves. The world's largest cruise ship, the Icon, is over 360m long and weighs in around 250,000 gross registered tonnes. It boasts 20 decks; 40 restaurants, bars and lounges; seven pools; six waterslides and a 17m waterfall. Royal Caribbean says its boat will usher in "a new era of vacations".

Maybe so. But the Icon is also a doubling down on a negative aspect of cruising's current era: greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2022, Mr Bryan Comer, director of the Marine Programme at the International Council on Clean Transportation, examined the carbon footprint of cruising compared with a hotel stay plus air travel - since cruises are effectively floating hotels. His analysis found that a person taking a US cruise for 2,000km on the most efficient cruise line would be responsible for roughly 500kg of carbon dioxide (CO2), compared with 235kg for a round-trip flight and a stay in a four-star hotel. In other words, taking a cruise generates "about double the amount of total greenhouse gas emissions" as flying, he says.

Not to mention, "usually people fly to take a cruise", notes Ms Stella Bartolini Cavicchi, marine policy adviser at OceanMind, a non-profit organisation that uses satellite and other technologies to understand humans' impact on the sea. Flying to a cruising port means you "end up with quite a carbon-intensive holiday", she says.

A Royal Caribbean spokesperson says the Icon is designed to operate 24 per cent more efficiently than the international standard for new ships, which per International 

Maritime Organisation (IMO) regulations must already be 30 per cent more energy-efficient than those built in 2014. The company will also monitor the Icon "over the next six to 12 months to ensure that we're getting what we were designing the ship to be", the spokesperson said.