IMO's MEPC Meeting Votes to Delay Adoption of Net-Zero Framework

The IMO's Marine Environment Protection Committee has been meeting in London this week. Image Credit: Ship & Bunker

This week's extraordinary session of the International Maritime Organization's Marine Environment Protection Committee has voted to delay adoption of the UN body's net-zero framework by a year after strident opposition from the US and other countries.

A motion to delay adoption was put forward by Singapore's delegation on Friday afternoon and put to a vote by Saudi Arabia.

57 delegations voted to delay, 49 countries opposed the motion and 21 abstained.

A vote on whether to adopt the framework will now be held next year.

"We are disappointed that member states have not been able to agree a way forward at this meeting," Thomas A. Kazakos, Secretary General of shipping body ICS, said in an emailed statement.

"Industry needs clarity to be able to make the investments needed to decarbonise the maritime sector, in line with the goals set out in the IMO GHG strategy.

"As an industry we will continue to work with the IMO, which is the best organisation to
deliver the global regulations needed for a global industry."

The net-zero framework, provisionally approved in April of this year, would have set progressively tougher carbon intensity requirements for marine fuels from the years 2028 to 2035, having first come into force in March 2027. This week's delay may now mean that timeline has to be pushed back.

The delay is likely to mean the EU's measures to regulate shipping's GHG emissions at the regional level - the EU Emissions Trading System and the FuelEU Maritime regulation - remain in place in their current form for longer, and take on greater prominence within the maritime decarbonisation debate.

Other similar regional systems from other parts of the world are also more likely to emerge if global efforts remain stymied over the long term.

The Trump Administration in the US had been a steadfast opponent of the IMO's framework, characterising it as a tax on American consumers.

"The United States will NOT stand for this Global Green New Scam Tax on Shipping, and will not adhere to it any way, shape, or form," President Donald Trump said in a social media post on Thursday.

"We will not tolerate increased prices on American consumers or the creation of a Green New Scam Bureaucracy to spend your money on their green dreams."