IMO: Calls for Shipping Carbon Tax Getting Louder

by Ship & Bunker News Team
Monday June 12, 2023

An opinion piece by a Reuters columnist has added to noise surrounding shipping's next move on decarbonisation.

With a crucial meeting of the International Maritime Organisation's environmment committee in July, columnist Hugo Dixon has called for a strong and expeditious response from the UN maritime body.

"The sooner the IMO gets cracking, the better," Dixon wrote.

The head of the Norwegian Shipowners' Association, Harald Solberg, has made a similar point in an opinion piece published by Ship & Bunker last week.

And Dixon has the same focus --  a global carbon tax on shipping -- which, he argued, is needed to bring the shipping sector in line with the growing impact of climate change.

"A levy of $100 a tonne, which would make dirty fuels roughly as expensive as cleaner ones, would raise $100 billion a year - although the sum would eventually fall if the tax was successful in getting shippers to switch away from hydrocarbons."

The question of who the money collected from the tax would serve -- the industry or developing countries -- has yet to be decided. The IMO works on consensus and moves slowly but it could move faster.

"It can take decisions on the basis of a majority vote. It can also enforce its will," Dixon wrote.

"If a country refused to apply an agreed tax, the international shipping industry would effectively be unable to operate from its ports."

Ship & Bunker News Team
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