| By Akshat Rathi Under immense pressure from the US, countries at a meeting of the International Maritime Organization in London on Friday agreed to postpone a vote that would have made the shipping industry pay for planet-warming pollution.  A container ship at the Port of Los Angeles on Aug. 15. Photographer: Tim Rue/Bloomberg The carbon pricing regulations were first agreed on by the vast majority of countries at a meeting in April, but President Donald Trump’s administration pushed hard to get countries to vote against the measure going into effect at the October meeting. That included threats to levy tariffs and to delay visas for maritime crew. Discussions on the issue went as high as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, said a person familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity to discuss private details. The night before the vote, Trump wrote on his social-media platform Truth Social that the US will not “stand for this Global Green New Scam Tax on Shipping” and urged countries to “vote NO in London tomorrow.” “We’re not having climate negotiations here, we’re having geopolitical negotiations,” Faig Abbasov, director of shipping at think tank Transport & Environment, said on the sidelines of the talks. “The United States is waging war against multilateralism, UN diplomacy and climate diplomacy, at this meeting now, inside the building and outside the building.” Countries at the IMO failing to adopt the carbon charge will further sour the moods of negotiators heading into the UN climate summit COP30, happening in Brazil in November. All countries are expected to submit new climate plans going out to 2035, but so far those plans have mostly disappointed. COP30 is aimed at delivering on the goals of the Paris Agreement to keep global temperatures from rising beyond 2C compared to preindustrial levels. While the agreement accounts for the vast majority of global greenhouse-gas emissions, it leaves out those coming from shipping and aviation beyond territorial boundaries. That means, without the support of IMO, the world will fail to halt global temperature rise. The IMO’s net-zero framework had been carefully designed after years of inputs from all major countries, including from the US under former President Joe Biden. Since Trump’s return to the White House, the US has systematically attacked climate policies both at home and abroad. “The arguments against the framework are weak. Even if shipping costs were to rise by up to 10%, this would barely affect consumer prices, as shipping typically represents only a small fraction of total product costs,” said Rico Luman, senior economist for transport at the Dutch bank ING. “In contrast, the various direct import tariffs that we’re currently seeing are far more damaging economically.” Thomas A. Kazakos, secretary general for the International Chamber of Shipping, said the chamber — which represents firms that hold 80% of the world’s shipping fleet — was disappointed by the outcome. “Industry needs clarity to be able to make the investments needed to decarbonize the maritime sector,” he said. The delay means “that innovation will struggle to scale, inequities will deepen, and the transition to clean shipping will become harder and more costly,” said Natacha Stamatiou, global shipping manager at the Environmental Defense Fund. The European Union was trying its best to ensure that the carbon levy gets adopted. But the postponement for one year shows “European leadership in international climate talks is not enough,” said Krzysztof Bolesta, Poland’s deputy climate minister. Many attendees at the meeting remarked on the hardball approach taken by the US to apply pressure on countries. Norway’s climate minister Andreas Bjelland Eriksen told the Norwegian news site DN that he was “worried” to see the US’s new attitude to global climate diplomacy under Trump. It might be a sign of things to come at the COP30 summit next month. — With assistance from Jack Wittels, Ewa Krukowska, John Ainger and Jennifer A. Dlouhy | 
