News / 'Intimidation and vested interests' at IMO may spur unilateral climate action

Image made by The Loadstar using Dall-E

Last month, experts at London International Shipping Week (LISW) had predicted that if last week’s IMO Net-Zero Framework (NZF) did not go through, the result would be an “impenetrable patchwork” of overlapping rules from different trading blocs.

“We’ll end up with proliferation, distortion,” warned Katharine Palmer, shipping lead of the Climate Champions team, on secondment from Lloyd’s Register. “Every country will do their own thing… as a global industry, it will be unworkable.”

Last week’s decision to delay the vote on NZF for a year is not quite what Ms Palmer described. Rather, it is a play-for-time by the US and the petrostates, which have recognised the existential risk of allowing a carbon tax, even in a quiet and unglamorous transport sector like shipping, to go ahead.

Moreover, components of the NZF were to include a global fuel standard (GFS), which would apply a well-to-wake framework to the fuels shipping would use, closing loopholes that allow agricultural land to be given over to the powering of ships, the preferred strategy of the air industry; and, the use of ‘grey’ versions of ostensibly green fuel, an opportunity for petrostates to continue, or even increase, production under a green veneer.

But, as the Brazilian delegation pointed out, delaying for another year would require timelines for emissions reductions to be revised into the future, setting IMO progress back far longer.

“This outcome is a devastating indictment of member states’ lack of courage to stand in solidarity with climate-vulnerable countries to achieve a just and equitable maritime transition,” said Opportunity Green senior director Em Fenton, following last week’s result. “Faced with pressure, too many governments chose political compromise over climate justice, and in doing so abandon the countries bearing the brunt of the climate crisis.”

The cop-out will embolden IMO’s detractors, who say the organisation cannot move with the times. A popular example was the slow-walked implementation of the ballast water management (BWM) convention, which gave enterprising microorganisms 13 years to colonise and wreak havoc on whatever ecosystems they fancied.

Now, interested member states have the mandate they need to push ahead regardless. Advocates for a global consensus had hoped the IMO would show the muscle necessary to talk-down the European Parliament, too, from moving ahead with its own climate regulations on shipping, unfettered by compromises. Now, IMO’s weakness in the face of a last-minute spoiling motion by Saudi Arabia has given Brussels exactly the ammunition it needs.

China, meanwhile, has invested heavily in the production of methanol and ammonia, and will be wanting a return on its investment. As President Trump’s latest ‘taco’ this month has proved, even if many IMO member states will be pushed around, China will not.

“The delay leaves the shipping sector drifting in uncertainty,” said Alison Shaw, IMO manager at Transport & Environment (T&E). “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.

“The world cannot let intimidation and vested interests dictate the pace of climate action. Climate-ambitious countries must use this moment to build a strong majority in support of meaningful decarbonisation. They will be the ones that benefit from the economy of tomorrow, not the geopolitical power games of the past.”