Trump’s threats succeed in halting global plan to clean up shipping emissions

A plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions in shipping supported by much of the maritime industry was shelved Friday by delegates to a UN regulatory body following threats from President Donald Trump that he would punish countries backing the measure.

The International Maritime Organisation (IMO), which regulates global shipping, had agreed in the spring to move ahead with its plan to zero out the sector’s emissions, leading to escalating threats from the Trump administration.

“We’re calling on other nations to vote with us or face serious consequences,” Michael Waltz, the US ambassador to the United Nations wrote Thursday on the social media platform X. Trump, in his own social media post, vowed that “[t]he United States will NOT stand for the Global Green New Scam Tax on Shipping and will not adhere to it in any way, shape or form.” He branded the plan a scheme by bureaucrats to raise prices on American consumers to pursue “their Green Dreams.”

The World Shipping Council, a major industry group, earlier this month reaffirmed its support for the compact, calling it key to zeroing out the sector’s emissions by 2050 and avoiding “a growing patchwork of unilateral regulations [and] increasing costs without effectively contributing to decarbonisation.”

If the compact had been approved this week, the new rules would have been set to take effect by March of 2027. All large ships traversing international waters, including cruise lines, would have had to start by cutting their emissions 17 percent by 2028. On Friday, the United States and other major fossil fuel producers, including Saudi Arabia, persuaded the body to table the compact for at least a year.

“This was a massive surprise,” said Salvatore R. Mercogliano, a shipping industry scholar at Campbell University in North Carolina. “Early this week, the IMO had this deal in the bag.”

Most of the world’s biggest economies are continuing to pursue steep cuts in greenhouse

gas emissions, imposing regulations on major polluters like shipping that increasingly complicate their business outlook. The fight at the International Maritime Organization underscores the broader tension between the Trump administration and much of the rest of the world - and many industries themselves - over climate policies.

Leading up to Friday’s vote, the administration made repeated and public threats against countries that were poised to support the climate compact, which takes aim at a sector responsible for 3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The State Department put countries on notice that if they support the plan, they would face “retaliation” that could include blocking their vessels from entering US ports, visa restrictions on their crews, trade investigations, sanctions on individual officials, and loss of contracting opportunities with the US.

It was an extraordinary list of threats against nations supporting a plan that is endorsed by many of the biggest companies that would be affected by the change and trade groups in the global shipping industry, and was enthusiastically backed by the US under President Joe Biden.

Companies including shipping giant Maersk and associated industry groups championed the proposed rules, hoping they would bring clarity and uniformity that would enable every company to compete on the same playing field as they made costly upgrades to their fleet.

Small island nations facing climate catastrophe had protested that the draft compact was too weak and would not go far enough to save their communities from rising seas and extreme weather.

It would require that large vessels transition from the types of heavily polluting fossil fuels they use now to greener alternatives, and potentially engage other technologies - such as machinery that captures and compresses carbon emissions - to cut the greenhouse gases they release.

The Trump administration declared the pursuit a misguided and costly effort driven by climate alarmism. The administration has sought to jettison the mainstream scientific consensus around climate change, and redefine the problem as more of an unfortunate nuisance than an existential threat. The framing has drawn widespread condemnation from scientists around the world.

But the lobbying against the framework by administration officials appeared to unnerve representatives at the IMO, who worried about their nations’ economies and relationship with the US if they passed the measure.

The vote shocked some of the nongovernmental organizations that have been working on this framework for years.

The Ocean Conservancy, a nonprofit based in Washington, called the failure to adopt the framework “disgraceful.”

“The agreement would have slashed carbon emissions and saved lives,” said a statement from Delaine McCullough, the group’s shipping program director. “A world without this agreement is dirtier and more dangerous for people, wildlife and the ocean.”

THE WASHINGTON POST