In the middle of next year, the UN body will convene in London for its next iteration of the Marine Environment Protection Committee, a gathering of minds on which hopes are pinned to determine the regulatory framework for an industry starved of concrete guidance.

Shipping and its stakeholders will be looking to No.4 Albert Embankment, London, to provide answers on a global fuel standard, and a response that comes in tandem with a carbon-pricing mechanism that can help bridge the gap with zero-carbon fuels.

Ultimately, this will determine the acceleration of climate finance, the final investment decisions of sustainable fuel supply, as well as the composition of the forward orderbook. For good or ill, everything will flow out of progress at the IMO next year.

The permutations are therefore key. A positive outcome will see the industry move as one, while a less positive one will see shipping seemingly destined for a more fragmented future.

As daunting as this may sound, this latter scenario is already taking shape — at least in part. Rather than leapfrogging directly to sustainable future fuels, such as methanol and ammonia, shipowners are increasingly looking to liquefied natural gas as the pathway while waiting for things to move. Maersk’s recent reversal on the so-called gateway fuel is a case in point.

Yet while the LNG option may seem like a step backwards, there is reason to be optimistic.

Although it seems a negative move — in the sense that it elongates the decarbonisation curve, which was always going to take generations anyway — it shows the industry is finally becoming serious on tackling the ever-pressing issue of efficiency. This is a must if the sector is to reach its 2030 goals, let alone those for 2050.

One could, though, argue that the industry still has some way in getting its commercial architecture aligned. Take the issue of how owners and charterers are still arguing over who foots the bill for paints and coatings — a factor that really should have been done and dusted five years ago.

Nonetheless, the recent spate of LNG and dual-fuel orders across nearly all sectors are signs of tangible progress. The ships being ordered today are much more efficient than the ones being ordered last year and the year before that.

The pragmatic reality here is that the industry needs to order ships and replenish the fleet — and it is doing just that, regardless of the scenarios stemming from IMO consultation.

This course of pragmatism, coupled with the uncertainty surrounding shipping’s future, are the two guiding forces of our Top 100 this year. Shipping may well be in a state of flux, but its main protagonists are refusing to lie low.

Yet the sheer enormity of next year’s IMO summit and the potential consequences are the reasons why Lloyd’s List has seen fit to award the coveted most influential person in shipping to its secretary-general Arsenio Dominguez.

While he personally will not be responsible for the IMO’s outcomes — much of this will fall on the agreement and concessions among member states, make no mistake — progress or no progress will serve to see his tenure as being the most important of any in the history of shipping’s governing body.