Ship owners are postponing or canceling the installation of “scrubbers” that extract harmful sulfur emissions from their vessels as the coronavirus pandemic tightens finances. Regulations from the United Nations agency the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which took effect in January, were viewed by the oil and shipping industries as one of the first worldwide efforts to enforce environmental change. The rules aimed to make ships use fuel with a sulfur content of 0.5%, compared with 3.5% previously. Operators had the alternative option to install devices – scrubbers – to strip out the pollutant, which causes lung problems among humans and contributes to the acidification of oceans and acid rain, but has not been directly linked to climate change like carbon. In the run-up to IMO 2020, dozens of traders and ship owners, bet on installing scrubbers hoping to make a profit from buying cheaper high-sulfur fuel as the […]