The Daily View: Up in smoke?

WHATEVER you may hear or read about the IMO, no one really knows what’s going to happen next.

But we have a fair idea of one possible outcome, owing to our lead scoop: that the IMO is mulling putting the Net-Zero Framework vote on ice.

If this happens — and the situation is so fluid that there’s no guarantee it will — it would avoid a bruising series of votes that will show the consensus-driven UN organisation is deadlocked over whether to formally adopt the world’s first global carbon price.

Sources said the majority in favour of adopting the NZF is thinning to the point where every vote counts.

The US and Saudi Arabia spent Thursday filibustering the MEPC meeting, presumably to win more time to warn governments off supporting the adoption. They are having some success, or at least acting like they are.

If the NZF is not adopted, all the IMO’s work on regulating GHG emissions so far goes up in smoke. Freezing the issue could open the door to changes that may move the polarised debate forward, or at least stop the baby being thrown out with the bathwater.

But do states want the issue put in cold lay-up, after all these years of delay? If you think your side will win the vote, then you’d rather have it and be done with it. There has been no apparent progress on the NZF diplomacy-wise since April; why should we expect any different in another six months?

Fears are widespread that failure on the GHG issue is an existential threat to the IMO’s credibility. If adoption rules are changed from “tacit” to the more circuitous “explicit” acceptance procedure, the whole organisation could be hobbled.

We are closer than ever to the moment of truth. We’ve never looked further from a way forward.

Declan Bush
Senior reporter, Lloyd’s List

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