Em Fenton is Senior Director of Climate Diplomacy at Opportunity Green, supporting climate-vulnerable countries in multilateral negotiations, such as the International Maritime Organization.
Governments are gathering in London this week and next to advance the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Net-Zero Framework (NZF) in a global effort to reduce emissions from international shipping. The meeting may not make headlines outside climate circles, but what happens there matters far beyond shipping.
The international shipping sector underpins around 80% of global trade and contributes roughly 3% of global annual emissions.
The NZF represents the best, most equitable solution currently viable to address this issue and, last April, a large majority of countries voted to put it forward for formal adoption through the IMO’s process.
The framework is a compromise from the most ambitious possible design, but it still represents a hard-fought victory for multilateralism, with countries coming together to create a solution aimed at the global best interest and providing a solid foundation for a just and equitable transition.
It combines a technical fuel standard (setting emissions limits on the fuels used in ships) and an economic element that puts a price on emissions from international shipping.
A system under attack
With a global swing towards nationalism in recent years, some countries are increasingly placing domestic priorities over global climate action, despite legal obligations to act. And in doing so, they are overlooking the reality that abandoning multilateral decarbonisation efforts will ultimately exacerbate domestic challenges.
This trend is most notable the US’s withdrawal or removal of support from the Paris Agreement, the WHO and the UN Human Rights Council, but is also playing out in other areas, such as India’s decision to withdraw its bid to host COP33. All this begs the question: just how resilient is multilateralism in a period of intense geopolitical tension?
The system was built on two assumptions that now appear increasingly fragile: that countries would act through multilateral efforts in the collective interest; and that agreed action would be implemented at a scale and pace commensurate with need.
Coupled with this drift from its central purpose is an observable decline in its effectiveness across all five domains in which it operates – but most notably in climate action.
Because international shipping is inherently global and cannot be meaningfully regulated through unilateral or regional action, the IMO is one of the few institutions capable of delivering effective decarbonisation at scale. Failure to make progress at the IMO therefore sends a powerful signal about the limits of international cooperation more broadly, particularly on climate action.
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Within this context, progress has faced three distinct forms of resistance: rejection of the need for action, procedural delay or obstruction, and efforts to weaken outcomes to the point where ‘success is effectively meaningless.
At recent IMO meetings, these dynamics have become more pronounced, culminating in a successful move by the US and Saudi Arabia last October to delay the formal decision to adopt the NZF by a year.
The matter now sits in procedural limbo. This was further complicated by abstentions from two European Union countries (Greece and Cyprus), despite the broader EU’s support for adoption. Greece has subsequently affirmed their support for the US and Saudi position.
These procedural delays were accompanied by threats from the US administration of retaliatory measures, including tariffs, withdrawal of visa rights, or imposing fees on nationals visiting US ports.
Making the case for multilateralism
The stakes here extend well beyond shipping.
For multilateralism to remain meaningful, it must be able to produce binding outcomes – even when powerful states object. The IMO process is one of the few remaining forums where every country’s voice carries equal weight and no single state can exercise a veto.
If that process can be undermined through procedural delay and coercive pressure, it sets a precedent for other multilateral negotiations, particularly in climate governance.
This week in London, countries have a concrete opportunity to demonstrate that multilateralism still works – by being present in the room and actively supporting climate ambition.
This remains the most effective way to achieve climate goals, create the economic conditions for investment in the maritime transition, move away from an overreliance on fossil fuels, and protect the very foundations of multilateralism.
The alternative is not just a failure for shipping; it is a signal to every difficult negotiation that follows that obstruction works.
