A white sail on a blue sea. What could be cleaner than that?’ Sailing nerds might recognise this quote from the all-time greatest sailing film, Wind. Or maybe that’s just me. Anway, it’s easy to assume that drifting around with the breeze has little impact on the environment, let alone the global climate.
Certainly, the marine industry is tiny compared to other emitters of greenhouse gases, but it still registers on the scale. Recreational boats account for less than 0.1% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, specifically 0.7% of transportation carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions in the United States and 0.4% of transportation CO₂ emissions in Europe. Those numbers sound small, but then consider that there are estimated to be 50 million recreational craft globally, with
