Black Trail is an agenda-setting collaborative investigation into the environmental impacts of the shipping industry — a sector that is all but untouchable as it receives eye-watering subsidies and stashes its profits in tax havens, all the while polluting with impunity.
This collaboration brings together journalists from newsrooms and TV networks across Europe, including Expresso and SIC TV (Portugal), The Black Sea (Eastern Europe), Reporters United (Greece), VG (Norway) and RTS (Switzerland), with research and reporting support from Financed Uncovered (UK).
The cross-border team focuses on how the shipping industry has “captured” the International Maritime Organization, the UN agency that has, since 1948, been the only body charged with regulating the emissions of greenhouse gases and pollutants produced by ships.
Although the shipping industry insists that it carries 90 percent of global freight yet is responsible for less than three percent of carbon dioxide emissions, the investigation exposes a darker — and deadlier — reality.
It shows how the sector has dodged the climate debate as it continues to burn the dirtiest of all transport fuels. Ship emissions are responsible for more than 50,000 deaths a year in Europe as particles like black carbon drive up cancer rates in Mediterranean port cities.
Meanwhile, the same emissions are contributing to climate change as they speed up the melting of Arctic icecaps.
At the core of the project is a story of urgency. The journalists combined painstaking research with an obsessive quest to confront those who have the actual power to change climate policy. The team also strove to bring together clashing narratives by those in power and a new generation of activists who are willing to challenge the status quo.
Fieldwork for the project stretched from the Arctic Circle to the Aegean, via the Black Sea and the major transport hubs of Europe.
AUTHOR
Micael Pereira
PRODUCED BY
Zeynep Sentek
Craig Shaw
Micael Pereira
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER
Nikolas Leontopoulos
EDITOR
Marco Carrasqueira
REPORTERS
Myrto Boutsi
Julien Chiffelle
Runa Engen
Margot Gibbs
Nikolas Leontopoulos
Micael Pereira
Giulio Rubino
Zeynep Sentek
Craig Shaw
CAMERAS
João Lúcio
Julien Chiffelle
Kristoffer Kumar
David Langan
Christos Kodellas (drone)
ANIMATIONS
Alexia Barakou
ANIMATIONS SOUND DESIGN
Aris Athanasopoulos
GRAPHICS
Sérgio Maduro
COLORIST
Carlos Isaac
SOUND MIX
Edgar Keats
SUBTITLES
Spell
FOR EIC (EUROPEAN INVESTIGATIVE COLLABORATIONS) NETWORK
COORDINATOR
Stefan Candea
FOR EXPRESSO
EDITOR IN CHIEF
João Vieira Pereira
DEPUTY EDITOR IN CHIEF
Paula Santos
DIGITAL COORDINATOR
Joana Beleza
FOR THE BLACK SEA
MANAGING EDITOR
Zeynep Sentek
INVESTIGATIONS EDITOR
Craig Shaw
EDITOR & FACT-CHECKER
Himanshu Ohja
FOR SIC TV
EDITOR IN CHIEF
Ricardo Costa
DEPUTY EDITOR IN CHIEF
Marta Brito dos Reis
PRODUCER
Mónica Pinto
FOR REPORTERS UNITED
Thodoris Chondrogiannos
Christoforos Kasdaglis
Stavros Malichudis
ARCHIVAL MATERIALS
AFP
Reuters
SIC TV
This investigation was supported by grants from the Investigative Journalism for Europe (IJ4EU) fund and Journalismfund.eu
A European Investigative Collaborations (EIC Network) documentary produced by Expresso, The Black Sea, SIC TV, and Reporters United, in co-production with RTS and VG. Finance Uncovered contributed to reporting and research.
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