Four months out
Put this date in your book: Friday, 4 December 2026. That is when the IMO’s resumed extraordinary session is expected to adopt the Net-Zero Framework: a fuel standard and a carbon price on international shipping. It will land straight after MEPC 85, which runs 30 November to 3 December. Four months out, and the biggest regulatory decision in a generation is on the table.
We have all read two years of “MEPC stalemate” headlines. Stalemate is the wrong word now. This is a chess endgame.
Quick recap if you spent the past year at sea. In April 2025, MEPC 83 finalised the draft amendments: the GFS, a goal-based fuel standard that lowers marine fuels’ greenhouse-gas intensity, plus a price on shipping’s emissions. The vote in principle was 63 for, 16 against. Then the extraordinary session in October 2025 failed. Delegates voted to adjourn for twelve months rather than call the question, widely reported in the trade press as a bruising 57 to 49 vote under US and Saudi pressure. At MEPC 84 in May 2026 the framework survived the assault: 55 delegations lined up behind it and carbon pricing, 51 behind weakening it. Intersessional meetings follow in September and November, then the vote.
Why should a seafarer care about a vote in a London committee room? It decides which molecules we bunker in 2035, which certificates our ships need and what our next training course will be. The alternative-fuels picture is one connected system, and the December vote is what the rest hangs on.
Well-to-wake: the unit of account
The unit of account is well-to-wake: the GFS measures greenhouse-gas intensity from extraction to combustion, including methane and nitrous oxide, not just stack CO₂. FuelEU Maritime has measured the same way since 1 January 2025. Ships over 5,000 gt calling EU ports face intensity cuts of 2% this year, rising to 31% by 2040 and 80% by 2050, with penalties around €2,400 per tonne of VLSFO-equivalent.
Once well-to-wake is the unit of account, everything connects. Methane slip decides LNG’s credentials, not stack CO₂, and the energy used to make an e-fuel counts against it. Regulation is the mechanism that turns fuel choice into a measurable price.
These fuels are not competing answers to one question. They answer different parts of it: LNG, methanol and ammonia replace the molecule; wind, efficiency and batteries cut demand; carbon capture cleans up what we still burn; nuclear is the wildcard.
The portfolio, fuel by fuel
LNG is the volume leader. 590 LNG-fuelled ships in service and 564 on order: 1,154 by end-2028, roughly a third of the orderbook. In the container sector that is 55% of capacity against methanol’s 21%. Anyone who has bunkered LNG knows it works. The fight is methane slip, roughly 80 times more potent than CO₂ over 20 years. MARBEM’s campaign, launched in October 2025, found methane emissions from LNG-fuelled ships rose 180% between 2016 and 2023. MOL came back with a 98% slip reduction in sea trials: a methane oxidation catalyst and engine modifications against a 70% target. Durability trials run to FY2026, rollout from 2027. Treat LNG as what it is: today’s workhorse, and a transitional one.
Methanol is a supply problem, not an engineering problem. Around 5% of ships on order, roughly 240 container vessels. It sits at ambient temperature and bunkers like a normal fuel, easy for crews and ports. Most methanol is fossil-based, and green methanol is scarce and expensive. It suits liners with long-term offtake contracts, not tramp shipping. The production gap is stark: three operating Chinese plants turn out around ten times the output of six running European sites, and about 80% of European projects are still pre-final-investment-decision. The molecule is ready. The market is still catching up.
Ammonia: engines real, fleet tiny. In August 2025, J-ENG completed the world’s first full-scale commercial ammonia-fuelled engine after roughly 1,000 hours of testing: a dual-fuel design claiming more than 90% GHG reduction at 95% co-firing, delivered that October and installed on a gas carrier entering service in 2026. Yet ammonia-capable tonnage is just 0.5% of the orderbook. CMB.TECH’s eleven ammonia-powered ships this year, ten Newcastlemax bulkers and a 1,400-teu boxship backed by a 158,000-tonnes-per-year green ammonia offtake, is the first real wave. The constraints are familiar: ammonia is toxic and corrosive, and bunkering, safety guidelines and training have to be built from scratch. Interim guidelines went through MSC 109 in December 2024; MSC 110 identified 51 regulatory gaps and 32 recommendations. Realistically, this is an after-2035 story.
Hydrogen and batteries: the short-sea story. Hydrogen suits ferries, workboats and offshore vessels. The trend is to generate it on demand with fuel cells, not carry it in tanks. Battery-electric suits short, fixed routes with shore power, the Norwegian ferry model. Incat’s Hull 096, the world’s largest battery-electric ship, began trials in December 2025: 130 metres, 2,100 passengers, more than 40 MWh of battery in around 250 tonnes. Neither is coming to a Capesize bunker manifold in our working lifetimes, but both are quietly sensible where they fit.
Wind is the only propulsion that pays for itself. The wind-assisted fleet passed 100 ships in June 2026: more than 100 cargo vessels, over 5 million dwt, 230+ units, more than 100,000 tonnes of CO₂ saved a year. Tankers lead with 37, bulkers and ro-ros with 24 each, general cargo with 19. That is nearly five-fold growth since May 2022. EU and UK studies suggest up to 15% of the fleet could use wind by the early 2030s. FuelEU explicitly credits wind-assist, and CII benefits indirectly because you simply burn less. IWSA’s line is worth remembering: wind is the only propulsive energy source that will effectively pay for itself.
Nuclear is the wildcard. MSC 110 agreed in June 2025 to revise the Code of Safety for Nuclear Merchant Ships, a PWR-era document, and the relevant SOLAS provisions, covering non-PWR designs and all-electric ship concepts. In May 2026 the US launched a nuclear-powered shipping initiative, a MARAD request for information covering reactor design, cost, regulation, port access, workforce and, tellingly, liability and insurance frameworks for port access. But this is a regulatory build-out measured in years, not months. Do not hold your bunker plan for it.
Carbon capture is the end-of-pipe option. The International Chamber of Shipping’s June 2026 review, prepared with Lloyd’s Register Advisory, calls onboard capture one of the few realistic near-term options for meaningful tank-to-wake cuts while green fuels are limited and expensive. The hardware is moving. The first centrifugal capture system went on a Scorpio LR2 tanker in July 2025, and DNV confirmed a centrifugal capture system’s performance in June 2026. The unresolved question is recognition: whether captured CO₂ counts against the GFS, and how the capture-energy penalty is treated under CII. Until the IMO settles that, owners will not pay for tanks they cannot credit.
What the IMO has to do
Five things, in rough order.
First, adopt the Net-Zero Framework on 4 December. Ships missing the base target trajectory buy remedial units at US$380 per tonne of CO₂-equivalent; miss the direct compliance target and it is US$100, both for 2028 to 2030. Revenues are estimated at US$10 to 12 billion a year, with 39 countries engaged on distribution. That price is the signal green-fuel producers, engine makers, ports and trainers are waiting for. It slipped in October 2025 and investment froze. It survived May 2026. Slip again, and expect regional regimes like the EU’s to fill the gap.
Second, reshape CII into the GFS. In force since 1 January 2023, CII has well-documented criticisms: it rewards distance over cargo work, counts port waiting against the ship and invites gaming. Phase 1 of the review is done. Phase 2 runs to 2028, building metrics that sit alongside the GFS and eventually align with it. CII is not abolished. It is being rebuilt to measure fuel intensity properly.
Third, finish the ammonia safety guidelines. The framework is advancing: 51 gaps identified, 32 recommendations in hand. But the rules have to land before the fuel scales, not after.
Fourth, keep pushing the nuclear code revision. It started in June 2025 and will take years, but it started.
Fifth, settle carbon capture accounting. Decide whether captured CO₂ counts under the GFS and how the energy penalty is treated under CII. The retrofit market will respond.
The crew question
Now the human part: training. The near-term bottleneck is the crew, not the molecule. The Maritime Just Transition Task Force published the first training frameworks for ammonia, methanol and hydrogen in September 2025. The IMO approved generic interim training guidelines in June 2025, with fuel-specific ones in development.
Sobering number: in a Splash/Inmarsat survey, roughly half of respondents expect half the fleet or more still on traditional bunkers in 2035. Dual-fuel competence, safe bunkering, knowing what to do when something goes wrong in the engine room: that will dominate the next decade far more than fuel purity debates. A Master Mariner’s view: the crews drilled on the fuels they actually carry, and the companies that treat training as an operating cost rather than an afterthought, will carry the industry through.
4 December
Four months. MEPC 85 will open on 30 November, and the resumed extraordinary session will vote on 4 December. File it under policy if you like. It is the story of what we will bunker, burn and be trained to handle for the rest of our careers.
Watch the outcome, read the meeting summaries, and if your flag state, your union or your industry body has a position, make sure it has yours.