The IMO and the law of the jungle

WHEN push comes to shove, the IMO is not a global government. It’s just a room in which people from 176 countries gather to talk about the big issues.

So the fact the IMO failed to come up with a global answer to climate change — one of the biggest issues of them all — is disappointing, but not that surprising.

Countries voted 57-49 to adjourn the MEPC meeting for one year, in a win for opponents of carbon pricing. The NZF is not dead, or at least not yet. But its odds of being adopted, and of entering into force, look worse.

The framework, which if adopted would tax ships for a slice of their GHG emissions to raise billions for green R&D and climate change causes, sailed through its approval vote with a 63-16 majority six months ago. The US had boycotted that vote.

It then took just under six months for the Trump administration to wake up to what such a regulation could mean. Its response was an overwhelming show of diplomatic force, including threats at a state, company and individual level.

The US did all it could to bully, threaten or cajole countries into backing down. It will probably do so again next year. But this is Trump, so trying to predict the future is pointless.

Saudi Arabia meanwhile outfoxed its EU opponents with sulphurous poise, hogging the mic and using every trick in the rulebook to undermine the majority in favour of the carbon tax.

China, whose support for approval was big news at MEPC83, switched to supporting the delay. Greece and Cyprus abstained, in breach of EU rules, and reflecting their shipping industries’ strong misgivings about the carbon price.

A No vote would have killed the NZF outright and left the IMO rudderless on climate, with no clear alternative for achieving its (non-binding) net zero strategy. A Yes vote depending on ‘explicit’ acceptance rules would have seen it adopted, then strangled at birth.

Friday’s vaguer outcome means that draft legal text agreed so far may live on in some other form. More time to fix the NZF’s substantial weaknesses may not be an entirely bad thing.

The work will go on at IMO, but the momentum of MEPC83 has been dealt a blow. The global signal shipping needs to invest in greener technologies is still nowhere to be found.

IMO secretary-general Arsenio Dominguez will come under fire for this result, but he doesn’t deserve it. He has no power to change the paths of powerful states, only the thankless task of urging them to work together.

Many believe that climate change is too big an issue for the IMO to solve. This week was more evidence that international law depends on politics, and politics will follow only the law of the jungle — the eternal fight for power, wealth and influence.

Even if the NZF is adopted, it will not have a happy life as long as the world’s major powers remain at odds over its goals.

Perhaps more climate disasters will convince countries of the need to pay a higher price. Until that changes, we will get nowhere.