SHIPPING leaders are struggling to reconcile their reservations with the International Maritime Organization’s new green rules with the possible “disaster” they face if the international framework fails to pass next month.

Executives pressed to give their views at London International Shipping Week were clearer on the need to avoid the alternative — each country taxing shipping emissions as it pleases, with no central oversight — than they were to offer full-throated support for a Yes vote.

Businesses used to advocating a single global framework to decarbonise shipping are more circumspect now there is a concrete proposal before them.

ABS chief executive Chris Wiernicki’s calls on Monday to “pause and rethink” the rules, and to help the uptake of LNG and biofuels, raised eyebrows.

A source at a large customer of ABS called the statement “rather surprising” and “out of place” with the class society’s past insistence that it did not take part in political discussions.

In a more measured statement published late on Tuesday, Wiernicki called the NZF “a starting point we can build on with industry support”.

“The IMO has a critical role in delivering a unified global framework, something the industry needs if we are to avoid the fragmentation and inefficiencies arising from a patchwork of regional regulation,” he said.

ABS said the two statements were consistent in their message.

Asked for his two cents, Lloyd’s Register chief executive Nick Brown told Lloyd’s List he supported a clear global framework, but didn’t explicitly endorse the one on the table.

“A multilateral, transparent policy sets the framework for how the industry should decarbonise,” he said in emailed comments.

“We recognise and have been very vocal about the questions that remain and continue to be active in addressing the challenges within the framework.”

The problem is that the IMO can only fix the problems with the NZF — uncertainty on switching ships to green fuels, and on whether the money will be taxed fairly and spent wisely — if it adopts the whole package. But doing that means accepting the risks later.

Brown alluded to the uncertain green rewards and lifecycle assessment guidelines for green fuels, both crucial to the functioning of the greenhouse gas emissions scheme.

“Many shipowners and investors are not confident that ZNZ fuels/power supply are scalable and going to be available,” he said, referring to zero- or near-zero emissions fuels.

“It is critical for the IMO to provide clarifications to build the confidence required to take action.”

International Association of Ports and Harbors managing director Patrick Verhoeven said a No vote would be “a disaster from many perspectives”.

He said it would send the industry back to the drawing board on the design of a fuel standard and carbon price, and lead to the EU ramping up its regional taxes.

The support of developing countries and the goal of a “just and equitable transition” for them would also be in jeopardy if the IMO reopened negotiations on the topic.

The NZF provisioned some funding for compensating the most vulnerable states and small islands threatened by rising seas.

“It’s already difficult today to convince the developing countries about an economic measure,” Verhoeven said.

“They say, ‘What’s in it for us?’ Well, that could be in it for them.

“But if that’s off the table as well, I’m not sure where we are.”

Sources said they expected opposition to grow more vocal in the weeks before MEPC, which starts on October 13.

But the noise is getting louder just as the shipping industry’s ability to control the debate is diminishing.

A group of countries have opposed the adoption outright, but most formal submissions are from countries weighing in on the question of revenue distribution.

Shipping bosses are right to worry about a bad framework becoming law. But events could soon overtake them.