Posted in Marine industry talk
The likelihood of new life being breathed into the International Maritime Organization’s Net Zero Framework on greenhouse gas emissions appeared to be, well, near zero as of Friday 13th 2026, the day after President Trump denied the scientific basis for existing US policy on climate change.
As he heads towards November’s critical mid-term elections, the US President jettisoned the 2009 ‘endangerment finding’ which deems GHG emissions harmful to human health and the environment, and has underpinned climate policy for 17 years.
One outcome, according to President Trump, is: “You’re going to get a better car, you’re going to get a car that starts easier, a car that works better, for a lot less money.”
Another must surely be the quieting of voices who interpreted the wrecking ball the US brought to NZF discussions at last October’s session of the Marine Environment Protection Committee as an opportunity to consolidate knowledge, mature technologies and align regulatory clarity.
Based on the President’s actions of February 12th, even eternal optimists must begin to understand that when the US Government brands NZF “the first global carbon tax within the UN system”, it is a call back to the nation’s foundation 250 years ago not a bargaining chip. And when it threatens countries who support the NZF with additional port fees, restrictions on seafarers, penalties on government contracts and financial sanctions on officials it may be a maximalist position – but not in the negotiating sense.
Instead, as the opening statement read out by the visiting US delegation to MEPC in October and signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio made plain “the U.S. will not accept international arrangements seen as unfairly burdening U.S. households and industry”.
As to the disposition of the current Trump administration to the IMO, it is of course a matter for celebration that it was not among the 66 international organisations the US said it would leave on January 8th, nearly half of which are affiliated with the United Nations.
But although the NZF may be undead, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation Affairs Marco Sylvester’s left little room for doubt on US intentions at last week’s Capital Link forum in Athens by calling for IMO to “finally put aside the Net Zombie Framework.”
With the mid-terms that will determine US Congress representation and define the rest of the Trump presidency due on November 3rd, MEPC 85 follows soon after between November 16-20th. Other administrations attending MEPC should surely arrive prepared to ride out the crossfire as US politicians on both sides of the environmental divide go in for the electoral kill.
And for an IMO most comfortable with consensus, agreeing that explicit acceptance will be needed before any further action is taken on GHG would surely be a strategic mistake. Doing so could see two decades of painstaking collective work on emissions from ships grind to a halt – no doubt in a haze of pledges on continuing commitment to act at a later date.
As a former SG on the IMO was fond of pointing out, citizens of the modern world could learn a thing or two about diplomacy – and much else – from the Ancient Greeks. And as students of the Athens coup of ‘the 400’ in 411 BCE may recall, it matters little what you promise for tomorrow, so long as you have power today.