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net zero
Under Pressure From Trump, UN Shipping Regulator Delays Vote on Net-Zero Rules
“With climate warming impacts being felt everywhere on Earth, kicking this decision down the road is simply evading reality," says one campaigner.
Oct 17, 2025
Advocates of establishing an international framework for decarbonizing global shipping on Friday decried a postponed vote on proposed rules—a move that came amid pressure from the administration of US President Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia.
Members of the United Nations International Maritime Organization's (IMO) Marine Environment Protection Committee gathered in London for a special meeting, MEPC 83, to vote on its Net-Zero Framework (NZF), a new set of global regulations aimed at slashing the shipping industry's greenhouse gas emissions.
A Saudi proposal to adjourn the meeting and delay a final decision on the NZF narrowly passed by a vote of 57-49, with 21 abstentions, Mongabay reported.
The NZF—whose goal is net-zero shipping by 2050—has two main interconnected components, a global fuel standard requiring ships to gradually reduce emissions, and a pricing mechanism meant to encourage the industry to voluntarily slash greenhouse gas output.
"The delay leaves the shipping sector drifting in uncertainty."
The NZF was approved at the last MEPC meeting in April, then shared with member nations for review, with an eye toward final assent during the current special meeting. However, while the European Union and nations including China and Brazil have been pushing for the NZF, the world's two largest oil producers—the United States and Saudi Arabia—are working to scupper the proposal, which Russia also opposes.
Trump took to his Truth Social network Thursday to pressure MEPC members to vote "no" on the NZF:
I am outraged that the International Maritime Organization is voting in London this week to pass a global Carbon Tax. The United States will NOT stand for this Global Green New Scam Tax on Shipping, and will not adhere to it in any way, shape, or form. We will not tolerate increased prices on American Consumers OR, the creation of a Green New Scam Bureaucracy to spend YOUR money on their Green dreams. Stand with the United States, and vote NO in London tomorrow!
The one-year postponement drew sharp rebuke from supporters of the NZF.
“We are disappointed that member states have not been able to agree a way forward at this meeting," International Chamber of Shipping secretary general Thomas Kazakos said following Friday's vote. "Industry needs clarity to be able to make the investments needed to decarbonize the maritime sector, in line with the goals set out in the IMO [greenhouse gas] strategy."
"As an industry we will continue to work with the IMO, which is the best organization to deliver the global regulations needed for a global industry," Kazakos added.
John Maggs, who represents the Clean Shipping Coalition at the IMO, said in a statement, “By delaying adoption of its Net-Zero Framework, IMO has today squandered an important opportunity to tackle global shipping’s contribution to climate breakdown."
“With climate warming impacts being felt everywhere on Earth, kicking this decision down the road is simply evading reality," he added. "Governments serious about climate action must spend the next 12 months rallying every nation that supports the framework, convincing those who are on the fence, or opposing, that its adoption is the only sane way forward.”
Elissama Menezes, co-founder and director of the advocacy organization Equal Routes, said: "Delay costs the climate—and coastal Indigenous peoples and Arctic communities are already paying the price for inaction. This week’s non-outcome should mean that states and the marine sector should double down on related efforts to reduce the impacts from the triple planetary crisis.”
Faig Abbasov, director of shipping at the green group Transport & Environment, told Reuters that "the delay leaves the shipping sector drifting in uncertainty."
Global shipping accounts for approximately 3% of the world's CO2 emissions. Approximately 90% of all international trade is conducted at sea, and proponents of the NZF warn that emissions will soar without the regulations.
While leading shipping companies including Maersk and CMA CGM have taken steps to transition their fleets to zero emission vessels, they are still falling short of the goals laid out in the landmark Paris climate agreement or even the IMO’s own 2023 emissions reduction strategy.
”However, all is not lost—not by a long shot," said Maggs, "as there is an immediate opportunity to slash [greenhouse gas] emissions from shipping, minimize fuel burn, and the overall cost of the energy transition, and that is to strengthen and make enforceable the carbon intensity indicator (CII), the IMO’s cornerstone energy efficiency measure."
CII is a shipping industry regulatory metric that measures a vessel's annual carbon intensity.
“There’s no time to waste," Maggs added. "At MEPC 84 in April 2026 member states need to focus all their attention on transforming the CII into the energy efficiency powerhouse needed to quickly right this ship and put it back on route to being a climate solution.”
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Morgan Stanley Latest Wall Street Giant to Ditch Net-Zero Coalition
Earlier this week, Bank of America and Citigroup also said they were leaving the Net-Zero Banking Alliance.
Jan 02, 2025
On Thursday, the Wall Street titan Morgan Stanley became the latest financial institution to leave the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, a United Nations-convened group of banks committed to "aligning their lending, investment, and capital markets activities with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050."
The defections keep piling up. Earlier this week, Bank of America and Citigroup said they were leaving the alliance, and earlier in December Goldman Sachs Group and Wells Fargo announced they were doing the same.
“We will continue to report on our progress as we work towards our 2030 interim financed-emissions targets,” Morgan Stanley told Bloomberg in an email.
While Morgan Stanley didn't offer an explanation for the exit, according to Reuters, financial firms have repeatedly found themselves in the crosshairs of some members of the GOP who argue that corporate efforts to limit fossil fuels run afoul of antitrust law.
Last summer, the Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee published a report accusing financial institutions colluding to impose "radical environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals on American companies." Their probe was largely focused on another climate group, Climate Action 100+, which is made up of financial institutions who strive to engage companies they invest in on climate issues. That coalition has also experienced a number of defections.
In December, 11 GOP-led states sued three asset managers in federal court, arguing that the firms had "artificially constrained the supply of coal, significantly diminished competition in the markets for coal, increased energy prices for American consumers, and produced cartel-level profits" for the firms in violation of antitrust law.
Despite the stated goals of the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, Morgan Stanley and other firms who are a part of the alliance have remained a major financial life lines for fossil fuel companies.
According to a report published by a group of NGOs in 2023, 56 of the largest banks in the Net-Zero Banking Alliance—including Morgan Stanley—have provided nearly $270 billion in the form of loans and underwriting to more than 100 "major fossil fuel expanders," from Saudi Aramco to ExxonMobil to Shell.
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Big Oil Should Pay for the US to Reach Net Zero
The cost of climate action must shift from taxpayers to fossil fuel producers, in other words, to those who profit from the products that pollute the air.
May 08, 2024
The Biden administration is spending billions of taxpayer dollars to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order for the U.S. to achieve Net Zero emissions by 2050, an important goal, in the opinion of most climate scientists, for saving our planet.
As immense as this spending seems, it is only a small fraction of what will ultimately be required. If America is to achieve Net Zero without massive tax increases, the cost of climate action must shift from taxpayers to fossil fuel producers; in other words, to those who profit from the products that pollute the air. Government regulation is essential to make this happen.
ExxonMobil’s CEO recently said “the people who are generating the emissions need to be aware of and pay the price for that.” Unfortunately, he was pointing to consumers, not producers. These fossil fuel producers are actively avoiding paying the price for cleaning up these emissions.
Fossil fuel companies make tremendous profits off of products that cause GHG emissions and should be the ones to take responsibility for these emissions.
Let’s consider an example. Last month, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded $6 billion to support 33 projects aimed at reducing emissions. One of the largest awards, $332 million, was for an ExxonMobil project to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at its Baytown, Texas, chemical plant by 2.5 million metric tons per year—a mere 0.04% of U.S. emissions. This award came after ExxonMobil warned the project might not continue due to unsatisfactory government incentives.
ExxonMobil’s net profit in 2023 was over $36 billion, more than 100 times the government award. Why does it need taxpayer funds to decarbonize? Can’t ExxonMobil reduce its emissions at its own expense as a cost of doing business? Fossil fuel companies make tremendous profits off of products that cause GHG emissions and should be the ones to take responsibility for these emissions. But the reality is they won’t unless they are required to do so.
With the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the government took the “carrot” approach: Give companies an incentive to act and hope that they’ll do the right thing. Some companies have been very complimentary of the IRA because it allows them to decarbonize at taxpayer expense. Their only complaint is that they want even larger incentives so they can make greater profits on their decarbonization investments. These companies now see the atmospheric carbon problems as opportunities, but they still want the U.S. taxpayer to pay for their new decarbonization business ventures.
It is time for the IRA’s carrots to be followed by a regulatory stick. If oil companies want to continue to produce fossil fuels, we should phase in a requirement that they address the emissions that result from their production and use. Companies that reduce emissions most cheaply will be more profitable than those who are less efficient, and this will accelerate the deployment of climate solutions. Oil companies will, of course, pass some of those costs on to their customers. This will prompt consumers to seek alternatives to fossil fuels and to use less—exactly what needs to happen if we are to achieve Net Zero emissions.
This regulatory approach is nothing new. When society needed gasoline to be produced without toxic lead, it was required by regulation and oil companies did it. The same thing happened when low sulfur fuels were required to reduce pollution. Companies spent billions to produce better fuels, and we have cleaner air and fewer deaths as a result. Similar regulations should, and must, be used to drive decarbonization.
This approach—requiring oil companies to decarbonize—should have supporters on both sides of the political aisle. It both improves the environment and reduces taxes—a win-win. The Big Oil lobby will be strongly opposed, just like they were to previous regulations. But in the end, they’ll do what needs to be done.
Oil companies like to talk about the and equation: Meeting society’s energy needs and reducing emissions. But there’s one more requirement they prefer not to discuss: doing it at their own expense. If they won’t do these three things at once, fossil fuel companies need to go the way of the dinosaurs. Our grandchildren will see their logos in museums and will be amazed that these giants were once so powerful that they were allowed to put our planet at risk.
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