THE International Maritime Organization pulled off what many thought politically impossible this year: a credible — if unfinished — pathway to decarbonising shipping.

What happens from here to 2025, when the IMO adopts the detail of its mid-term measures, will determine the course of shipping’s zero-carbon transition — and, with it, the future of the commercial architecture of the industry.

Get it right, and the industry can focus on delivering an equitable, global transformation of the fuels, infrastructure and ships required to power a more efficient approach to global trade.

Get it wrong, and a fragmented, costly and complex future awaits.

Ordinarily, the IMO would be represented on this list by its secretary-general as the figurehead — and both the current leader Kitack Lim and his incoming successor Arsenio Dominguez deserve a distinct position on this list for the influence they have over the industry (see no.13).

However, for 2023, it is important to call out the key power brokers within the IMO in order to properly identify where the tipping points lie.

While the IMO on paper represents the collective will of its 175 member state governments, there are surprisingly few true power brokers with sufficient clout to sway the outcome of what happens next.

China, inevitably, is going to be high on any list of maritime influence and within the IMO infrastructure, its star has been in the ascendant over the past decade.

Sitting in plenary meetings, you could be forgiven for overlooking China, such is the nature of its quiet diplomacy, but do not mistake discretion for inactivity.

On the margins of meetings is where you will find true power inside the IMO and China is the reference point to any counterargument when it comes to shipping’s carbon regulation.

When the gathering of global representatives were closing in on their landmark strategic ambitions for 2050 in the summer of 2023, all eyes were watching China’s delegation for approval — not the chairman at the front of the meeting.

China, along with the US, makes it into the list of IMO influencers on the basis of economic clout being wielded; but the nature of power within the IMO is not simply one of geopolitical standing.

The EU may have topped this Top 100 influencer list in 2022 on account of the imminent impact of the Emissions Trading System, but inside the IMO, its bloc vote is just one of many key power bases.

Brazil, for example, arguably holds more sway than ever in the decarbonisation debates by virtue of the country’s strong regional Latin America bloc support, as well as its individual economic power.

Yet it is not always size that matters. The 181 sq km Marshall Islands has a significant power base inside the IMO by virtue of the fact that it controls the third-largest flag in the global fleet and a significant amount of the sector’s offshore companies are registered there.

However, in the decarbonisation debate, it has become a powerhouse relative to its size — and a symbolic representative of the climate vulnerable.

The Marshall Islands diplomat Albon Ishoda has refused to let member states shy away from the very tangible realities of what climate change means for his home and that of many other small island states.

Together with diplomats from the Solomon Islands and Kiribati, he led a late push in the summer of 2023 to increase the ambition level, despite opposition from oil-producing countries and others.

Facing down a final offer from China and forcing it back to the table to increase ambitions was an impressive display of diplomatic hutzpah.

It was the Marshall Islands’ push for shipping’s goal to align with that of the Paris Agreement that eventually became normalised in the other 1.5-aligned states (US, UK, Canada, New Zealand and EU).

They also led the equitable transition rhetoric that, in less influential hands, could have weakened the outcome of the agreements.

The fact that the US and UK got behind the most ambitious 2050 strategy arguably pushed the EU27 states to increase its ambition; but the role of Germany and Denmark in directing European ambition levels cannot be underestimated.

The US and EU in turn played key roles in securing the debate around well-to-wake agreements and making sure that practical progress was made on measures, timelines and the workplan — all crucial details.

And if Brazil, US, Marshall Islands, UK, Germany, Denmark and China are 2023’s power brokers, we should also put in an honourable mention for Singapore, which tried and failed to create a consensus club, but is routinely there in the debate with a pragmatic compromise to offer.

What comes next is going to need all the diplomacy that these states can muster.

The fact that the IMO found consensus for a revised 2050 strategy was rightly considered a major milestone in 2023, given how entrenched and deep divisions have been.

Yet while significant achievements have been won, this was merely a skirmish in a long war ahead. The battleground now shifts from what the greenhouse gas-reduction targets should be, to how they will be achieved.

Any hope of reaching the higher but non-binding interim emission goals for 2030 by 2040 depends on whether countries can find further, continued compromise, this time over the right economic measures or pricing mechanisms to fund them.

That is a much, much more difficult deal to broker — and any one of those on the Top 100 list could potentially derail the process.

Those states leading the list in 2023 have a lot riding on their collective ability to build on the success of the year — and agree the detail of how it plays out in 2024 and beyond. 

The IMO has been represented in the Top 100 in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022.