Using a battering ram of trade and visa threats, the Trump administration on Friday blocked the adoption of a landmark global measure that would have imposed a global pollution tax on the shipping industry.
Countries meeting in London at the International Maritime Organization, an organization of 176 countries under the umbrella of the United Nations, were supposed to take a final vote Friday on a measure requiring cargo ships to lower their greenhouse gas emissions to a certain threshold or pay a fee.
It had been provisionally adopted in April with the backing of the leading shipping lobby and most of America’s allies, including Britain, Canada, the European Union and Japan. China too supported the measure.
The United States, backed by Russia and Saudi Arabia, pushed to delay the adoption by a year. The motion to delay was narrowly passed in a vote of 57 to 49, with other nations absent or abstaining.
The Trump administration brought a raft of threats to dissuade countries from voting for the measure, including visa restrictions and additional fees on flagged ships from those countries landing at U.S. ports.
On Thursday President Trump said he was “outraged” that the organization was considering a carbon-emissions price on global shipping. “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,” he wrote in a social media post.
In a joint statement issued last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the United States was considering antitrust investigations into countries that support the measure and “blocking vessels registered in those countries from U.S. ports.”
The statement referred to the proposed fee as a “European-led neocolonial export of global climate regulations” and said that it would raise shipping costs.
The European Union then issued a two sentence statement of support for the tax proposal, saying it would “ensure a global level playing field.”
Arsenio Dominguez, the secretary general of the International Maritime Organization, called out the pressure campaign against the measure, without naming any countries. “It’s the manner in which the conversations took place this week,” he said. “This was not the normal I.M.O. meeting.”
He made a plea to country representatives to behave better when they return next year to consider the measure.
“Be nice and kind to each other,” he said. “It doesn’t cost much.”
The conflict at the I.M.O. comes at a time when the high seas have become a high stakes battleground for American power. Mr. Trump has upended global trade with a series of unpredictable tariffs. The U.S. and China are charging extra fees on each other’s ships docking at their ports.
In response to a request for comment, the State Department pointed to the joint statement.
Traditional shipping fuel, also known as bunker fuel, is a heavy oil that produces carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide when burned. New kinds of fuels are being developed, including ammonia and hydrogen-based alternatives.
The proposed Net-Zero Framework, as it is called, would require cargo ships weighing 5,000 tons or more to pay a fee if their carbon dioxide emissions exceed a threshold level and in effect, reward ships that use cleaner fuels.
If it had been approved this week, the levy would take effect in 2028 and would mark the first time an entire industry paid a price for its climate pollution. The proceeds would mostly be used to help the industry transition to less polluting fuels.
The World Shipping Council called it a “carefully balanced regulatory package.” Another industry lobby, the International Chamber of Shipping, backed the measure too. “We are disappointed that member states have not been able to agree a way forward at this meeting,” Thomas A. Kazakos, the International Chamber’s Secretary General said in a statement Friday after the vote. “Industry needs clarity to be able to make the investments needed to decarbonise the maritime sector.”
This week’s delay follows a 2023 agreement by the International Maritime Organization to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by around 2050. Last year, it offered a more concrete plan, which included an industrywide carbon price. In April this year, countries voted on a draft agreement. The United States walked out of those proceedings in April. Russia and Saudi Arabia voted against it at the time.
Ralph Regenvanu, the climate minister of Vanuatu, a small Pacific island nation among the world’s most vulnerable to sea level rise, called it “unacceptable given the urgency we face in light of accelerating climate change.”
Somini Sengupta is the international climate reporter on the Times climate team.
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