THE recriminations and finger-pointing in Europe over shipping’s crumbling decarbonisation consensus have the potential to become an unwelcome distraction.

Greece and Cyprus will likely not face an infringement case over their unprecedented move to break bloc unity and abstain from the vote that delayed adoption of the Net-Zero Framework. But that doesn’t mean they won’t face consequences.

The gap between Athens and Copenhagen on issues of maritime climate policy is significant. Tempers are frayed among officials and industry leaders alike.

On paper, the Europeans have 12 months to find some unity and get a global net zero plan back on track, but the reality is much more urgent than that timeline suggests.

The US, with its supporting cast of petrostates, derailed what Donald Trump branded the Global Green Scan Tax on Shipping. It did so via a concerted campaign against supporting states, companies and associations that included the direct threat of sanctions, visa restrictions and port fees for anyone who dared continue to support the agreed Net-Zero Framework.

The threats were direct and did the job. Shipping leaders are now self-censoring their agenda in response to fear of what may come if they are deemed to be “on the wrong side”.

We know of at least one climate initiative pulled by a big Washington-based institution last week on the basis of expected reprisals if they are seen to be “too green” by US agencies. 

Such steamroller tactics caught the usually collegiate IMO veterans by surprise and the shellshocked Europeans are yet to recover their composure.

But for all the incredulous cries of foul play, this was as much a case of the fragmented Europeans losing as it was the US opposition winning the day through threats and superior strategy.

What gets missed in the European retelling of how the NZF was lost is that the US State representatives who led negotiations and the Saudi delegation outclassed every other member state in that room.

The current US administration has made no secret of its aversion to multilateralism, but it turned up with a better understanding of the rulebook and outplayed everyone at their own game.

Europe was left looking divided, unprepared and ultimately they were beaten.

What happens next is not just about whether a global carbon price for shipping ever sees the light of day — this is about how shipping navigates its way through the uncharted waters of a new political world order.

A return to ideas of sovereignty and power dynamics, with large countries dominating smaller ones, requires rapid adaptation.

What played out in the IMO earlier this month is a microcosm of the political turbulence that lies ahead for states and companies alike who will increasingly find it difficult to claim the traditional apolitical position of global trade neutrality.

Shipping executives may not want to choose sides, but that is the direction of travel right now.

Boardrooms more used to assessing supply and demand fundamentals are ill equipped to plan strategically for the shift from a global consensus on co-operation to a focus on national interests and power dynamics.

At the Global Maritime Forum last week, shipping was notable absent from much of the conversation.

Geopolitics has outstripped the supply-demand fundamentals that drive decision-making — or the lack of it — inside modern shipping boardrooms.

Executives are devoting unprecedented time to assessing geopolitical risk as trade wars, regulatory shifts and regional conflicts reshape global shipping patterns.

And shipping is struggling to get an accurate read on the new geopolitics shaping businesses.

But what is plain to everyone is that things are getting more complicated, more expensive and more fragmented.

The past two weeks were about the politics that upended the IMO  and the extended period of uncertainty for decarbonisation.

But this is not just a carbon efficiency problem — the current direction of geopolitical drivers generally are making shipping, and global trade, significantly less efficient.

US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s latest tit-for-tat trade showdown is just the latest in a long list of frictional forces making seaborne trade more costly, complicated and inefficient.

Sanctions-led divisions had already left around 20% of the tanker fleet operating as a shadow fleet and trade lanes determined by geopolitical affiliations rather than supply and demand. But that fragmentation is only going to increase as the market rushes to reshuffle in line with the national affiliations of US and Chinese ownership.

Globalisation’s earlier phase was designed and defined by scale and symmetry.

One set of rules for all. One currency system to clear transactions. One consensus on the value of integration.

Now, though, supply routes are mapped not only for distance and cost, but for political alignment.

Shipping and trade is being weaponised and that is a dangerously fluid position for many companies to find themselves in.

Those who would not touch a Chinese tanker last month are now desperately wishing the tables hadn’t turned quite so quickly. But they also know that safe harbours are found in increasingly short periods.

Look beyond the headlines of tariff turmoil, financial perma-crisis and geopolitical turbulence — shipping continues to be remarkably resilient. For now.

Even as trade lanes and investment adjust to these new geopolitical norms, where nations seek independence, the reality is the global economy will remain stubbornly entangled and interdependent.

Trade volumes have not collapsed in this new phase of globalisation. They have plateaued and rerouted.

Supply chains have not vanished, they have shortened, duplicated and hedged.

Capital has not gone home, but it has become more selective and more politically conditioned.

Who “won” or “lost” in the IMO is not really the issue. This is now a question of where shipping companies want to position themselves in the new world order.