The IMO's latest round of talks on the Net-Zero Framework (NZF) closed on Friday, with the chair of the working group reporting a "genuine willingness" among delegations to make concrete progress at its next session and to put text before the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) in November.

The 22nd session of the Intersessional Working Group on Reduction of GHG Emissions from Ships (ISWG-GHG 22) met at IMO Headquarters in London from September 1-4 under chair Sveinung Oftedal of Norway, with nearly 1,200 registered participants, the IMO said in a meeting summary published on Friday.

Key outcomes of the session:

• The working group closed with a call for intersessional consultations on the MARPOL Annex VI amendments.
• The chair reported a "genuine willingness" among delegations to present text to MEPC 85 in November.
• Guidelines and life cycle assessment work were deferred to ISWG-GHG 23 for lack of time.
• The resumed extraordinary session of MEPC is scheduled for December 4, subject to MEPC 85 discussions.
• A UCL readout counted 38 states speaking in favour of a central fund and 17 against; campaign groups read the week either as a failure or as a framework that held.

The group considered proposals on how to address concerns with the draft amendments to MARPOL Annex VI that would give effect to the framework. Those amendments were approved at MEPC 83 in April 2025 but failed to win adoption at an extraordinary session last October. The framework itself stems from the IMO's 2023 revised GHG Strategy, which set a goal of net-zero emissions from international shipping by or around 2050 and called for mid-term measures -- including a GHG pricing mechanism -- to help deliver it.

Following what the IMO described as constructive discussions, the group invited interested delegations to continue consulting between sessions "with a view to submitting concrete proposals reflecting enhanced convergence allowing timely adoption and effective implementation."

Time proved the limiting factor elsewhere on the agenda. The group held only a preliminary exchange on the draft guidelines supporting implementation of the mid-term measures, and did not reach the IMO's life cycle GHG assessment framework at all, deferring both items to ISWG-GHG 23. That session is scheduled for November 23-27, immediately ahead of MEPC 85 on November 30 to December 3. The second extraordinary session of MEPC, adjourned last October, is scheduled to resume on December 4, subject to discussions at MEPC 85, the IMO said.

Away from the IMO's official summary, the UCL Shipping and Oceans Research Group's readout of the meeting concluded that a large majority of IMO member states were continuing to back GHG pricing and a centralised fund to support shipping's transition, with 38 states speaking in favour and 17 against. It also found Japan's direct-contributions alternative had been "robustly rejected," as reported in full here.

Campaign groups, meanwhile, agreed that little had moved but framed the outcome differently. Transport & Environment said the talks had "drawn a blank for the third meeting in a row" and called "the failure of states to get close to a credible deal" deeply disappointing, while the Clean Shipping Coalition, of which T&E is a member, said the framework "remains intact."

Earlier in the week the US delegation used the fund discussion to restate its opposition to any IMO-administered fund while setting out alternatives it could accept, including Brazil's "facility" concept.

The IMO also noted that the trust fund that pays for developing-country delegates to attend its GHG meetings faces a shortfall of around £220,000 this year.

Source: Ship & Bunker