Us Official: No Hope For Global Carbon Tax

A Trump administration official told international negotiators this week that American efforts to derail a global initiative to lower shipping industry climate pollution are gaining traction.

Rear Adm. Wayne Arguin, a career Coast Guard official who leads the American delegation to the U.N. International Maritime Organization, suggested that the so-called Net-Zero Framework would fail to be adopted if it’s brought up for a future vote. He was speaking at a technical meeting of the IMO ahead of broader talks next week in London.

“We can say at this point there is a clear, strong and sizable bloc of countries opposed to the NZF and no prospect of achieving consensus around that proposal,” Arguin told the group, according to a meeting participant who was granted anonymity to describe the closed-door session.

His comments came ahead of the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee meeting starting Monday. It's the panel’s first session since the U.S. successfully delayed a vote on the net-zero framework for one year in October.

At the center of the initiative is a proposed carbon tax on ships and a related sustainable fuel standard, both of which would help the industry meet an IMO commitment established in 2023 to zero out shipping sector carbon emissions by 2050. The framework has become a key target of the Trump administration as it seeks to cripple international action to tackle global warming.

Since delaying the vote last fall, the Trump administration has sought to persuade other countries to oppose the measure by circulating a diplomatic cable warning nations not to adopt the carbon tax and its related climate measures. It’s also pushing to undermine proposed penalties on liquefied natural gas as a shipping fuel.

IMO chief Arsenio Dominguez has said the group’s discussions should be focused on areas where progress can be made. Next week’s meetings are aimed at addressing comments and concerns around the framework raised in October.

In addition to the U.S. outlining its opposition, several countries submitted alternative plans, including Liberia and Japan. But for many nations, the existing proposal already amounted to a compromise that had been hammered out over years of hard-fought negotiations.

“The framework, as approved in April 2025, was a carefully designed and curated package,” Michael Mbaru, a maritime expert with Kenya’s climate envoy office, told reporters earlier this month. If the carbon tax is jettisoned, the whole package could fail, he said.

The Net-Zero Framework calls for a carbon-intensity standard that would become stricter over time, encouraging industry to switch from fossil fuels to lower-emission alternatives. Ships that don’t meet the standard would need to pay a fee, which would help fund the shift to greener fuels and support developing countries.

Kenya was among the countries that supported the framework last year, along with Brazil, the European Union and several Pacific Islands nations, among others. Mbaru said Kenya continues to support it.

Arguin, who said the U.S. was open to “productive engagement” on the issue, pointed to an industry statement voicing opposition to the Net-Zero Framework. That statement came from a coalition that includes shipping registries, liquefied natural gas shipping services firms and Saudi Arabia’s national shipping company.

It says support for the framework “has continued to erode” and calls for consideration of alternative proposals that align “with demonstrated market readiness.”

The registries represent countries where ships are flagged. But the ships are largely represented by shipping associations.

A separate statement from several industry associations, including the World Shipping Council and the International Chamber of Shipping, which represents more than 80 percent of the world’s shipping fleet, struck a different tone.

The industry “remains committed to pursuing the ambition established within the 2023 IMO Strategy on Reduction of GHG Emissions from Ships, having invested and committed billions of dollars to trial and implement the use of alternative fuels and innovative technology,” the statement said.