Available since last week and directed to the administration of the Port of Lisbon, the city council and the municipal assembly, the petition text highlights that cruise ships keep engines running while they are moored, “burning dozens of tonnes of extremely polluting fuel, whose emissions are not, in the vast majority of cases, filtered or subject to treatment”.


This air pollution can cause coronary and respiratory diseases, lung cancer, heart attacks, as well as destroy “important ecosystems, including that of aquatic systems by acidification,” and damaging buildings and monuments.


The petition asks the Port of Lisbon and the Lisbon council for a set of measures to reduce air pollution generated by cruise ships, including the establishment of stricter environmental policies, greater supervision, as well as the application of sanctions and total ban on entry into the Tagus River of this type of vessel which will not transit to cleaner fuels before 2021.


Other proposed solutions include restricting the number of ships docked simultaneously, installing air quality measurement stations at cruise terminals, and carrying out a scientifically valid study that makes clear the public health costs of operating the Cruise Terminal.


The text also states that there are “measures available to port terminals to mitigate the problem”, and that “one of the most effective is the supply of electricity by the port to ships, allowing them to keep their engines off during their stay”.


“The council’s favouring of unregulated mass tourism on cruise ships, one of the city’s biggest sources of pollution, cancels out an improvement in air quality that could be achieved by increasing the supply of public transport. All this makes the award ‘European Green Capital 2020’ even more ironic”.


The petition can be found at: https://peticaopublica.com/pview.aspx?pi=PT95134