IMO Headquarters. File Image. Image Credit: Ship & Bunker

Climate campaign group Opportunity Green has urged IMO member states to adopt the Net-Zero Framework (NZF) in its original form, arguing that legal amendments now on the table would weaken it.

The NGO's briefing to member states comes ahead of September's ISWG-GHG 22 session, as governments prepare for a fresh attempt at adopting the framework that was approved at MEPC 83 in April 2025 but failed to win adoption at last October's extraordinary session in the face of US-led opposition.

The group's criticism centres on a proposal from Liberia that would replace the framework's mandatory remedial payments with greater reliance on a market-based surplus unit trading system.

Opportunity Green argues this would weaken the incentive to invest in zero-emission fuels and reduce the flow of money into the framework's Net-Zero Fund, which is intended to support developing countries through the transition.

Without a predictable economic incentive, the group claims, investment will continue to favour what it calls high-emitting fuels such as fossil-based LNG and biofuels over the zero-emission alternatives targeted by the IMO's 2023 GHG Strategy.

"The Net-Zero Framework is a landmark multilateral achievement after years of complex negotiations," Sapphire Ross, policy officer at Opportunity Green, said in a statement.

"Governments should protect this hard-fought agreement and resist attempts to weaken the core economic elements that underpin its effectiveness."

Em Fenton, senior director at the NGO, went further, describing the NZF as "the only credible proposal on the table" and any weakened alternative as "tantamount to abandoning climate vulnerable countries."

That characterisation is unlikely to be shared by the framework's critics: the US has formally called for any successor scheme to drop the carbon levy and the IMO fund altogether, while Liberia's alternative has drawn support from other flag states seeking a more market-led approach.

Whether the original text can command the votes it failed to secure last October remains the central question hanging over the negotiations as they head towards MEPC 85 at the end of the year.