- The shipping sector was widely expected to become the first industry to adopt a binding set of global greenhouse gas emissions rules during an Oct. 14-17 meeting in London.
- Instead, member countries of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) committee voted to delay the decision until October 2026.
- The rules would have established emissions intensity limits that become more stringent each year, with substantial fees paid for noncompliance.
- The United States and other oil-exporting countries dominated much of the discussion in London as they sought to prevent the rules from being adopted, arguing that they amounted to an illegitimate international tax and that they would have dire economic consequences.
This is Part 4 of a short series on efforts to decarbonize the global shipping industry, covering a key meeting from London. Part 1 addressed international policy and politics leading up to this meeting. Part 2 looked at efficiency measures; Part 3, alternative fuels.
The shipping sector was widely expected to become the first industry to adopt a binding set of global greenhouse gas emissions rules during an Oct. 14-17 meeting in London. However, the contentious talks concluded not with a vote on the rules, but rather a vote on whether to delay the decision for another year — a proposal that narrowly passed.
Member countries of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) committee voted 57-49 in favor of delaying the decision until October 2026. The IMO is a United Nations body that regulates shipping.
The “net-zero framework,” as the rules are known, would have established emissions intensity limits that become more stringent each year, with substantial fees paid for noncompliance.
“Getting the net-zero framework adopted in this [meeting], however imperfect, was fundamental for shipping to stay within reach of its own decarbonation targets,” Anaïs Rios, senior shipping policy officer at Seas At Risk, a Brussels-based NGO, said in a statement. “Emotions have run high this week at the IMO, with once high-ambitious alliances wavering and strategies eclipsing reason.”
The United States and other oil-exporting countries dominated much of the discussion in London as they sought to prevent the deal from being adopted. The U.S. derided the framework as an illegitimate international tax and argued that it would have dire economic consequences.
“The delay leaves the shipping sector drifting in uncertainty. But this week has also shown that there is a clear desire to clean up the shipping industry, even in the face of US bullying,” Alison Shaw, IMO manager at Transport & Environment, a Brussels-based advocacy group, said in a statement.
What is the framework?
Formally, the framework would come as an amendment to Annex VI of the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships. There are 108 parties to Annex VI, and these are the countries that would vote on whether to adopt the framework.
However, an additional 27 delegations were eligible for the Oct. 17 vote because this was a procedural vote, based on a proposal from Saudi Arabia, on whether to adjourn the meeting and delay substantive decisions until next year. Fifty-seven parties voted in favor, 49 against; 21 abstained and eight were not present. If it had been adopted, the framework, which has been largely supported by the global shipping industry, was set to go into effect in 2028, but this delay likely changes that timeline, experts say.
The net-zero framework would set a fuel standard that incentivizes the use of alternative fuels and, indirectly, the adoption of efficiency measures to cut down on fuel use. It would require vessels engaged in international shipping to reach lower and lower greenhouse gas emission intensity levels, a measure of the amount of carbon dioxide equivalent emitted per unit of fuel energy content.
The framework in fact would set two standards, one high and one low, meaning it effectively creates three categories of vessels: high emitters that meet neither standard and pay the steepest fees, medium emitters that meet only the lower standard and pay reduced fees, and low emitters that meet them both and are rewarded with carbon allowances.
It would increasingly punish the use of conventional marine fuels, which are fossil fuel-based. By 2035, a midsize carrier using conventional fuels — that is, a high emitter — could have to pay $1.5 million in additional fees per year due to the system, raising its fuel costs by roughly 20%, according to a recent analysis by scholars at the Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP) at Columbia University; they used a calculator created by the Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation, a Singapore-based nonprofit.
Critics on both sides, one with great power
The deal was a compromise many years in the making. The text was finalized after a vote at an April meeting, setting up the Oct. 14-17 meeting to determine if it would be adopted.
For some, the deal didn’t do enough to incentivize decarbonization. Environmental groups and many member nations, most notably a set of small island developing states (SIDS) in the Pacific Ocean, had pushed for a stricter system that would incorporate a more straightforward levy on carbon emissions.
Simon Kofe, transport minister of Tuvalu, an archipelagic nation in the South Pacific, said the text that was agreed to “delayed justice and left vulnerable nations unprotected.”
For others, the deal went too far. The United States and a number of other oil-exporting countries including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Russia led the opposition to the framework, arguing that it would be too economically costly.
The U.S. was particularly active in its attempt to nix the deal, experts said, both at the London meeting and beforehand. Some of its maneuvers were procedural, including an effort to affect the “acceptance” period that would follow adoption. The U.S. sought to make it so that the burden would be on proponents of the deal to get it fully ratified, rather than allowing it to be tacitly accepted; nothing was ultimately decided on this or any other matter at the meeting. Felix Klann, a maritime transport policy officer at Transport & Environment, called it a “delay tactic.” More significant was the heavy pressure the U.S. put on other delegations, he said.
“It is somewhat surprising how brazen they’re acting on the floor,” Klann told Mongabay, after the meeting adjourned, speaking of the U.S. delegation.
“It is quite surprising to see both the tone and the style in which…they’ve been behaving here, and that includes behavior on the floor, the wording, the way they treat procedure,” he added.
U.S. opposition dates back at least to the April talks, which the U.S. delegation left early, sending out a diplomatic note that called it “blatantly unfair.” U.S. officials followed with a series of diplomatic and public condemnations of the deal in recent months, accompanied by threats of retaliation at nations that support the framework. The threats included tariffs, new ports fees and visa restrictions, which were reiterated on the floor in London. The U.S.’ most recent public statement before the meeting, issued by three U.S. cabinet members on Oct. 10, referred to the framework as “the UN’s first global carbon tax” and argued that it would increase costs for U.S. citizens, energy providers and shipping companies and their clients. It went on to say that the framework “poses significant risks to the global economy.” The U.S. statements didn’t cite any economic analysis.
On Oct. 16, U.S. President Donald Trump himself criticized the framework, calling it a “Global Green New Scam Tax on Shipping” in a social media post.
A senior State Department official wrote in an email to Mongabay that “commonsense” prevailed. “The Trump Administration will not stand for the U.N. or any organization forcing American taxpayers to foot the bill for their environmental pet projects,” the official wrote.
What’s to come
Many environmental NGOs and international shipping associations reiterated their support for a deal after the meeting adjourned.
“A globally agreed framework is needed to provide a level playing field to get there,” the World Shipping Council, a trade association, said in an emailed statement. “The liner industry is committed to the goal of net-zero by 2050 and has invested $150 billion in ships designed to run on green fuels. The IMO remains the right place to deliver a global solution.”
Even though the body of the text of the framework has been finalized, many contentious details of the system remain to be worked out — a process that will continue in meetings as early as next week. There are technical negotiations to work through on issues such as how the full life cycle emissions of fuels will be measured; which fuels will qualify as “zero or near-zero”; how monitoring, reporting and verification will work; and how the climate financing will be distributed. The climate finance will come in the form of a “net-zero fund” that the IMO expects to have revenues of roughly $11-13 billion per year from the fees paid by vessels. The general plan is to use it for research and “just transition” initiatives in Global South countries. The CGEP analysis said the plan faces “significant institutional challenges” as the IMO has “limited experience administering or managing climate finance.”
Those details will not be relevant until the broader framework is adopted, and there’s no clear evidence it will be after the London meeting. Klann said the meeting set a “concerning precedent” that “intense geopolitical pressure of a very small group of governments” can undo so much multilateral work on behalf of the climate.
If substantive changes to the text of the framework are adopted in October 2026, the earliest it could be adopted would be April 2027, as a six-month circulation period is required, according to Evelyne Williams, a research associate at CGEP and co-author of the aforementioned analysis. She said the delay in adoption means stricter standards would now be needed in the framework in order to meet the IMO’s strategic goals set in 2023, which call for net-zero emissions “by or around” 2050.
“At this stage, however, the prospect of increased ambition looks vanishingly unlikely, if not faintly absurd,” Williams told Mongabay in an email.
Banner image: A Maersk ship docked in New Zealand in 2015.
World’s first industry-wide climate mandate could be launched with shipping vote
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