That the Net Zero Framework was a divisive measure had been understood for some time. In recent months, the Trump administration has done everything it can to sink the new regulatory framework, the first to foresee a carbon pricing system with penalties and credits within the scope of international maritime transport.
A tenacious opposition, the American one, which found important support not only in Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and the major oil-exporting countries, but also in Greece and Malta. Which last Friday, during a special session of the International Maritime Organization, decided to break ranks with the community, abstaining from the vote, and thus favoring the decision, taken by a majority with 57 countries in favor and 49 against, to postpone everything until 2026, the year in which the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC 84) of the IMO will have to take up the dossier again.
The abstention of the two Mediterranean countries was seen by EU leaders as a mutiny, especially because the Commission had already adopted a joint position on the issue in September, expressing the will to move forward with the adoption of the new regulatory package.
Some argue that the European Union is considering the possibility of initiating legal action against these two countries, guilty of having failed to meet the commitments previously made in Brussels, but what is more pressing to reveal is how there are still discordant opinions on the measure today that certify the de facto stalemate of decarbonization policies.
As is known, the NZF, proposed by the IMO in April, introduces a carbon credit trading system for ships with a gross tonnage greater than 5000 tonnes. These units, which in fact contribute to 85% of the carbon dioxide emissions produced in the international maritime sector, are required to achieve annual targets for mitigating /or reducing the emissions produced, possibly compensating for excess emissions by purchasing CO2 credits from other ships or paying penalties that will constitute the amount of the new Net-Zero Fund, the central economic fund of the carbon pricing system, on which there are still no clear governance rules.
It is precisely the taxes on emissions in the shipping sector that represent a controversial point that risks negatively affecting shipowners, emerging countries, and global logistics chains. This is an issue that the United States has targeted from the beginning, not participating in the votes last April, which in fact formalized the first adoption of the NZF, and going so far as to threaten retaliatory actions in recent weeks against the nations that would have supported such measures. Among the most impactful, that of blocking access to US ports for ships flying the flag of nations favorable to the NZF or that of imposing various types of trade sanctions.
According to reports from the special MEPC session, several countries that had previously supported the measures and approved the IMO’s Net-Zero Framework in April 2025 subsequently abstained or changed their vote in the October meeting. China, the world’s largest shipbuilder, went from supporting the measure in April to voting for the postponement.
Among the opponents are also major fossil fuel-producing countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Russia, many of which have argued that the IMO’s Net-Zero Framework sows global divisions and overlooks the potential economic impacts on citizens and economies. Major shipping nations like Singapore and Liberia have also raised objections.
According to Vinson&Elkins, the criticisms of the framework mainly focus on the lack of a sufficient supply of clean fuels to achieve the planned greenhouse gas intensity targets.
“Although the IMO’s Net-Zero Framework incorporates a credit purchasing system as a compliance pathway, recent studies question the availability of these credits to meet demand, given the limited ability to bank credits for future years and the lack of fuels capable of meeting the IMO’s greenhouse gas intensity targets,” writes the analysis firm, further noting that the resources that will form the treasure trove of the Net Zero Fund are insufficient to scale up the next generation of low-carbon fuels for the shipping sector.
The postponement clearly represents a victory for the Trump administration and puts the European Union in an even more difficult position, which now seems incapable of adopting a common position to present at the 30th United Nations conference on climate change, to be held from November 10 to 21, 2025, in Belém, Brazil.
According to Lloyd’s List, EU environment ministers only managed to agree on a shared text after accepting Greece’s request to remove any positive reference to the IMO’s measures from it.
A tough stance, that of Athens, which effectively certifies the breakdown of European unity on the issue of environmental sustainability and which was fully reflected in an editorial by the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, recently published in the Financial Times, from which it is clear that the Hellenic Republic considers all this emphasis on decarbonization in maritime transport “short-sighted,” especially in a context where coal and oil continue to be used on land without any problem.
Mitsotakis’s skepticism regarding the direction taken by the EU in the fight against pollution raises questions about how the path to Net Zero was structured, suggesting that perhaps the issue was handled too hastily and that the regulatory framework proposed by the IMO currently has serious weaknesses, and unjustifiably high sanctions for shipping; measures which, if accepted, could have heavy repercussions on global trade.
“The one-year postponement is likely to amplify the current uncertainty for the maritime sector, as there will be increased pressure from nations opposed to the NZF to abandon or reduce the previously approved measures,” state the Vinson&Elkins analysts again.
The situation therefore remains at a standstill, and the internal political balances within the EU are increasingly delicate.
It is difficult to think of any possible positive outcomes for a regulation that now pleases almost no one, neither the supporters of the most radical decarbonization, in whose eyes the NZF is unambitious, nor the opponents, who would prefer a softer approach from the Union. It is more likely, in fact, that from now on in Brussels they will proceed with the pace of a shrimp, where for every step forward there are several steps back.
