An ambitious plan to curb the shipping sector’s emissions survived renewed attempts to wreck it during meetings at the UN’s maritime agency last week, with its backers leaving at least partially buoyant.
Observers told Dialogue Earth that slightly more than half the voting countries want the plan, known as the Net-Zero Framework, to be the basis for future talks under the UN’s International Maritime Organization (IMO).
The US and Saudi Arabia tried to permanently sink the plan last year, and are still pushing for that outcome. At the London headquarters of the IMO last week, however, members decided not to rule anything out before the next meeting on the subject in late November.
If a vote to adopt the plan does take place, it will require a two-third majority to succeed.
“There is less pressure from the US and Saudi Arabia [at this meeting] … and the fact that the Net-Zero Framework is still on the table increases the chance of adoption,” said Benoit Bardouille, the Commonwealth of Dominica’s delegate to the IMO.
Ambulances on standby
Approximately 3% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions come from shipping. Countries have committed to achieving net-zero emissions from the shipping industry “by or around” 2050.
The IMO’s framework is intended as a step towards this. It proposes standards to limit vessels’ fuel emissions and requirements for shipowners to pay for emissions that exceed certain limits. The money would fund work to mitigate the impacts of climate change for developing states, and an aim of the framework is to somehow reward low-emission ships.
That 2050 target was agreed upon in July 2023, while the Net-Zero Framework was approved one year ago with a view to formal adoption at the next IMO meeting, in October 2025. But when October arrived, a majority of IMO states voted to delay further discussions for yet another year.
Some commentators said the plans were effectively dead in the water. Many attributed this apparent U-turn to the US government, which threatened proponents with economic punishments, and even intimidated delegates. Concerns that the plan would spike shipping costs and impact developing states were also cited as reasons to delay.
The IMO Net-Zero Framework requires ships to gradually reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses they emit for each unit of energy they use. This is known as a vessel’s “greenhouse gas fuel intensity”.
The framework includes a penalty-and-reward mechanism to help the industry meet this standard. Ships can comply with the limits on greenhouse gas fuel intensity by, for example, using low-carbon fuel.
Ships that fail to meet the easiest fuel intensity threshold face charges of USD 380 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent emitted; ships that fail to meet the next, more challenging threshold face a lower charge of USD 100 per tonne.
Ships that fail to comply with these thresholds can also buy surplus units from ships that have over-complied.
The framework was approved in April 2025 but is yet to be formally adopted.
In October, countries voted to delay the contentious decision on adoption – the final step in the process – for one year. That means it will not be discussed until the next meeting, this November. At last week’s meeting, multiple delegates told Dialogue Earth that political pressure from the US had eased; the fraught and bitter negotiations of last year were largely avoided.
When tensions did start to build on the final day, the meeting’s chair leaned on a running joke he had started at last year’s hugely heated session, asking: “I am sure you don’t want me to call the ambulance like the last time, right?”
In a statement issued after the meeting, the US delegate Laura DiBella wrote the framework would cause “serious economic harm”. A previously silent majority of countries that share this stance had “finally found its voice”, she added.
Tristan Smith, an energy and transport expert at University College London who attended the meeting, felt there was still “a lot of pressure” from the US and its allies in the room. But he told Dialogue Earth it did not appear as effective in influencing countries this time around: “That’s either because countries are paying less attention to the US … or countries are more prepared.”
Leading advocates, including Brazil, Mexico and most of the European Union and the Pacific, want the framework adopted largely as it stands this November. Over 100 country representatives took to the floor during discussions on the framework. According to Smith’s analysis, the majority indicated they still prefer the existing framework.
Various proposals are now trying to chart a course between the existing framework and abandoning it altogether. Ahead of the meeting, Liberia, Argentina and Panama proposed to work on “a revised and more pragmatic” framework. It would scrap payments into a net-zero fund, and only consider “commercially viable” and “affordable” fuels for the greenhouse gas intensity targets.
The proposal’s critics warn it would leave the IMO far from fulfilling its decarbonisation commitments. Furthermore, any significant changes require a new draft to be approved; this would restart the discussion clock, meaning another six months before a decision on adoption could take place.
Lloyd Fikiasi, a delegate from Vanuatu, found the US’s complaints over higher shipping costs ironic, given the current fuel and shipping crisis it has triggered since attacking Iran. The UN reports that Vanuatu has been forced to warn of electricity price rises, while the Pacific islands of Palau, Nauru and Kiribati are also “weighing responses”.
“They caused the war and now we suffer,” Fikiasi said. “We are paying for it.”
Member states have agreeing to continue discussions in intersessional meetings, which will taking place in September and November, before the plenary in late November to early December that will revisit the decision on adoption. “We are getting there,” Fikiasi added.
Jesse Fahnestock, the Global Maritime Forum’s decarbonisation director, told Dialogue Earth that his team also thinks the framework now has the backing of a slight majority.
However, while last week’s meeting “may have undermined some assumptions that the current agreement was dead”, Fahnestock added, “it’s a bit difficult to say where we are heading.”
