The International Maritime Organization's (IMO) proposed Net Zero Framework (NZF) offers a critical pathway for reducing emissions in international shipping and aligning the sector with global climate goals. Without the NZF, shipping emissions are on track to contribute significantly to global warming.

This briefing seeks to examine the potential temperature warming implications of the NZF, comparing it with a business-as-usual scenario that does not include the NZF. It also delves into the proposals submitted to the IMO for the upcoming Marine Environment Protection Committee 84 meetings, analysing how proposal and country positions on the NZF can either strengthen or weaken it.

The IMO's draft Net Zero Framework (NZF), agreed in April 2025, is a new regulatory package designed to put international shipping on a pathway towards achieving the IMO’s 2023 GHG Strategy emission reduction targets of 20–30% by 2030, 70–80% by 2040 below 2008 levels, and net zero “by or around” 2050 and will apply to ships over 5,000 gross tonnes (GT).

The world is likely to overshoot a 1.5°C global average temperature increase by 2030 – or the early 2030s – due to the fact that global emissions have not been falling fast enough. Urgent action is needed now to reduce emissions to minimise the magnitude of the overshoot and the extent of its duration. Recent research shows that the highest possible ambition, if undertaken now, can limit peak warming close to 1.7°C and have warming well below 1.5°C by 2100. The world now needs to intensify efforts to bring temperatures back below 1.5°C and achieve net zero emissions as soon as possible in the second half of the century as required by the Paris Agreement.

Integrated Assessment Models show that shipping can achieve real zero emissions by 2050, or close to it. Integrated Assessment Models suggest by 2050, hydrogen-based fuels would account for more than 55% of the fuel mix. Electrification is also expected to play a big role, contributing to 15% of the final energy mix for vessels covering short voyages. Shipping-related literature suggests that ammonia emerges as the dominant zero emissions fuel but estimates on the uptake vary, from 55% to 85% by 2050.

Troubled waters: risks and realities of blue carbon in climate action

Carbon stored in coastal and marine ecosystems, such as mangroves, salt marshes, and seagrass meadows (blue carbon) is viewed as a potential bridge between mitigation, adaptation, and climate finance. However, as this brief explores, the viability of blue carbon as a mitigation option is questionable due to the fragility of these systems and the use of blue carbon as offsets counterproductive.

Catalysing LT-LEDS implementation in Africa: Insights, bottlenecks, and solutions from country experiences

This report examines how African countries are advancing from the design to the implementation of their Long-Term Low-Emission Development Strategies (LT-LEDS), drawing on case studies from Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda South Africa, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, as well as extensive desk research and comparative analysis.

What has the Paris Agreement done for us?

Ten years on, the Paris Agreement is working, but not nearly fast enough. Since 2015 it has become the essential organising framework for global climate action: uniting countries behind the 1.5°C temperature limit and net-zero goals, reshaping science and policy, helping mobilise climate finance and clean-technology investment, and driving national reforms that otherwise would not have happened. This briefing lays out 22 ways it is changing the 21st century for the better.

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Decarbonisation targets and 1.5°C pathways

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Rescuing shipping's Net Zero Framework

Publications

Decarbonising electricity, cement, iron and steel, and chemicals in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia

AEMO's gas projections for Western Australia: analysis

Troubled waters: risks and realities of blue carbon in climate action

Catalysing LT-LEDS implementation in Africa: Insights, bottlenecks, and solutions from country experiences

Three key near-term actions could bend the warming curve; bringing projected warming below 2°C

Climate Action Tracker: 2025 warming projection update

Real zero is within reach

Rescuing 1.5°C: new evidence on the highest possible ambition to deliver the Paris Agreement

Preliminary comments on “Assessing the decarbonisation role of Western Australia’s LNG exports to Asia”

What has the Paris Agreement done for us?

Clearing the air on methane: a global review of emissions, ambition and the policy landscape

The responsibility of investor-owned carbon majors to contribute to direct air carbon capture and storage investment