The Daily View: Greece’s calculated bet

THE deal between Greece and Saudi Arabia to join forces on the IMO’s Net-Zero Framework is another sign that the carbon price is dead in the water, at least for now.

But it is not a decisive blow against the green shipping movement, so much as recognition that such a blow has already been struck, at the IMO last year.

Few insiders think the NZF, the world’s first global carbon tax, will be adopted while Donald Trump is in office.

Details are yet to emerge as to just what Greece and Saudi Arabia will propose for the NZF, ahead of October’s adjourned MEPC meeting. But Saudi Arabia’s track record on environment regulation leaves little doubt about where it stands.

Greece is in talks with the Kingdom over linking the two countries’ power grids, and wants to import US LNG to help wean Europe off Russian gas.

By offering to switch sides at the IMO to sweeten those deals, Greece risks the wrath of Brussels. But it’s still unclear what such wrath actually entails.

Greece is making a calculated bet that its No vote at IMO won’t be the decisive one. Many of the countries that don’t openly hate the NZF have serious misgivings about it.

The populist backlash against green energy will be convenient for European governments facing hard choices about energy, not just Greece.

But Europe still wields its ETS and FuelEU regulations, which shipowners despise. With no IMO regulation on the horizon, those rules are here to stay.

Greece may end up regretting this decision the next time it wants to plead its case to weaken them, or ask for more of the tax take…

Declan Bush
Senior reporter, Lloyd’s List

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