The Week in Alt Fuels: Don’t weaken the NZF in International Shipping News 18/04/2026 The IMO’s Net-Zero Framework (NZF) is already a fragile compromise and further concessions risk undermining its effectiveness, several organisations warn ahead of next week’s IMO committee meeting. The IMO’s Intersessional Working Group on Reduction of GHG Emissions from Ships (ISWG-GHG 21) will meet in London next week to discuss submissions from member states and organisations. The working group will then report to the Marine Environment Protection Committee’s 84th session (MEPC 84) in two weeks. Submissions from IMO member states to the GHG committee and the MEPC 84 show a widening political split, with the framework’s central fund and technical and economic elements emerging as key battlegrounds. Framework under fire “A framework that imposes sudden or unclear financial burdens will not command sustained support from Member States or industry, and risks undermining confidence in the process,” an Algeria-led submission to the IMO said. It was co-signed by the petroleum-producing states Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and the UAE. The US has called for the approved draft framework to be scrapped entirely and has opposed resuming the second MEPC Extraordinary Session in October this year. Against this backdrop, several shipping-focused non-profits have urged IMO member states to keep the framework intact. “The Net-Zero Framework is already a fragile compromise and any substantial changes will lead to an unacceptable reduction in effectiveness,” Lukas Leppert, senior lawyer at Naturschutzbund Deutschland (NABU) told ENGINE. “The current framework is the result of the Comprehensive Impact Assessment and multiple rounds of negotiations, building on the IMO GHG Strategy 2023. The technical and economic instrument are both essential for the decarbonisation of shipping and neither should be changed in its ambition,” he added. Clean Shipping Coalition president Delaine McCullough shares the view. The NZF “may not be as ambitious as is needed” but the technical and economic elements in the approved draft remain the backbone of shipping’s path to net-zero, she told ENGINE. Contentious remedial units Proposals to remove mandatory remedial unit (RU) payments into the IMO’s Net-Zero Fund while retaining only the surplus units (SU) have drawn strong criticism. RUs are units a ship must acquire and remit to cover emissions that exceed the stricter Direct Compliance Target, but still fall within the looser Base Target, purchased at a fixed price into the IMO Net-Zero Fund. SUs are units issued to ships whose GHG fuel intensity falls below the Direct Compliance Target in the IMO framework, which can be banked for future use or transferred to other ships needing to close a compliance gap. These payments underpin both enforcement and funding, NABU’s Leppert said. Without them, the framework would lose its main revenue stream and its ability to penalise non-compliance. UCL researchers have also flagged risks around market design. “A single-tier GFI can provide a capped SU market but introduces risks of SU price instability if the regulatory unit (RU) price must balance both compliance incentives and revenue generation simultaneously,” a joint study by shipping experts from the UCL Shipping and Oceans Research Group and RMI notes. Without penalties, there is little reason for operators to change behaviour, Clean Shipping Coalition’s McCullough said,