The International Maritime Organization, one of the more obscure agencies of the United Nations, doesn’t normally get much attention in Washington. Its plan for international regulations to address climate change is an exception. The plan, long in the works, would require ships to reduce emissions from burning fuel and impose a charge on the emissions ships emit. The Trump Administration is strongly opposed. On October 17, after the U.S. threatened to punish countries that support what the Administration calls “a global carbon tax on American consumers” by sanctioning their officials, blocking vessels from their countries from entering U.S. ports, and imposing port fees on vessels owned or controlled by their citizens, the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee voted to put the matter off for a year.
President Trump’s views on climate change are no secret; he recently told the United Nations General Assembly that it is “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.” Oil-exporting countries such as Saudi Arabia, which also opposed the IMO’s “net-zero framework,” tend to agree. Most IMO member countries seem to back the net-zero framework, as does the shipping industry’s leading trade association, the International Chamber of Shipping. Behind the scenes, though, there are major differences of opinion among maritime interests.
The big container lines are all in favor of limits on greenhouse-gas emissions. No wonder: many of the retailers and consumer goods manufacturers whose products fill container ships feel a need to project an environmentally friendly image to their customers, and they demand sustainable practices from contractors such as ocean carriers. They also fear that in the absence of an international agreement, conflicting national regulations could drive up their costs. Lines that transport motor vehicles or offer idyllic passenger cruises need to be green as well, for similar reasons. On the other hand, companies less visible to the public, such as operators of bulk ships, livestock carriers, and fishing fleets, may be less interested. As the head of a company that run oil tankers told me bluntly, “Our customers don’t care about sustainability.”
Another factor is also in play. Meeting the proposed IMO standards will, over time, require investment in vessels powered by something other than petroleum. This works to the advantage of large companies with the capital to make use of lower-emissions fuels by building dual-fuel ships and of shipyards hungry for their business. In the midst of a container-ship building boom, Alphaliner has identified sixty container lines that have no vessels on order. Limits on greenhouse-gas emissions could benefit the big players by forcing some of these smaller ones from the market.
I don’t think the net-zero framework is dead, because the commercial interests that demand greater certainty about the course of future regulation are strong. As Americans own less than two percent of the world’s shipping capacity and build few ships, the United States looks at commercial interest from a different angle, but when it comes to limiting emissions from shipping, it may be pushing a losing cause.