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Maritime and Ports
In light of this month’s surprise move by member states to put the Net-Zero Framework (NZF) on ice, the world’s leading shipping organisations have reaffirmed their support to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) as the global regulator for international shipping.
The Tripartite Forum of shipbuilders, shipowners and classification societies, which features the likes of BIMCO, INTERCARGO, INTERTANKO, the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) among others, convened recently for their annual conference in Busan, South Korea, during which they all came out in support of the beleaguered IMO, which has endured one of its toughest months.
Delegates at the Marine Environment Protection Committee’s (MEPC) extraordinary session in London voted on October 18 to adjourn NZF discussions for 12 months after failing to reach consensus or call a vote on the draft amendments to MARPOL Annex VI, which include the key elements of the framework. How each country voted is carried below.
The decision pushes any adoption of the IMO Net-Zero Framework into late 2026 at the earliest, complicating the timeline for meeting the organisation’s greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction strategy agreed in 2023.
Arsenio Dominguez, the IMO’s secretary-general, told delegates at the end of the MEPC gathering: “My plea to you is not to repeat the way we have negotiated this week, does not happen again. It does not help yourselves, and it does not help the organisation.”
A statement from the Sustainable Shipping Initiative (SSI) suggested the vote highlights some of the vulnerabilities of the IMO, the growing politicisation of decision-making and fragmented consensus between regions.
“We anticipate wider impacts from how national administrations respond, the evolution of regional regulations and the signals this sends out to the financial markets who are looking for long-term clarity,” SSI warned.