Rubio Rejects UN Call for First Global Carbon Tax on Shipping

The tax could raise international shipping costs by 10 percent or more, warned U.S. officials.

Container ships berthed at a port in Qingdao, China, on Sept. 24, 2025. /AFP via Getty Images

The United States strongly opposes a tax on greenhouse gas emissions in international shipping proposed by the U.N.’s International Maritime Organization (IMO), Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an Oct. 15 post on X.

“This week, the UN is attempting to pass the first global carbon tax, which will increase energy, food, and fuel costs across the world. We will not allow the UN to tax American citizens and companies,” Rubio said in the post.

“Under the leadership of @POTUS, the U.S. will be a hard NO. We call on other nations to stand alongside the United States in defense of our citizens and sovereignty.”

The IMO’s proposed Net-Zero Framework is a set of international regulations aimed at reducing emissions from ships, according to the organization’s website.

The regulations framework would establish a worldwide standard based on which ships must use “cleaner” fuels and technologies. The emissions would be measured using the fuel intensity metric, which calculates the amount of greenhouse gas emitted for each unit of energy consumed.

If the fuel intensity were determined to be high, the vessel would be required to pay “a price corresponding to the greenhouse gases they emit above certain thresholds,” the IMO’s website states.

“Ships must report their [Greenhouse Gas] Fuel Intensity ... to the IMO each year. Each ship must keep its emissions below set ... limits, which gets [sic] stricter every year,” it states.

Conversely, “ships will get rewarded for using cleaner fuels,” it notes.

Ships would be charged an estimated $380 per metric ton in penalties for every extra ton of carbon dioxide equivalent they emitted above a threshold. An additional $100 per metric ton would also be charged on emissions that breached a more-stringent emission limit.

Sixty-three nations, including China, Brazil, South Africa, and many European states, have approved the measure.

The framework would apply to all oceangoing ships with more than 5,000 gross tonnage. This category accounts for more than 85 percent of emissions from global shipping.

Discussions are ongoing to broaden the coverage and apply the rules to ships weighing between 400 gross tonnage and 5,000 gross tonnage.

IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee approved the Net-Zero Framework in April. IMO member states are reviewing the proposal for formal adoption in an ongoing committee meeting held in London from Oct. 14 to Oct. 17. IMO currently has 176 members and three associate members.

If adopted, the regulations are set to come into effect in March 2027, with the various national governments tasked with enforcing the rules. The framework is aimed at bringing down emissions from the global shipping industry to net zero by or in about 2050.

An Oct. 10 joint statement issued by Rubio, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the United States would not accept the framework proposal.

“The Administration unequivocally rejects this proposal before the IMO and will not tolerate any action that increases costs for our citizens, energy providers, shipping companies and their customers, or tourists,” they said in the statement.

“The economic impacts from this measure could be disastrous, with some estimates forecasting global shipping costs increasing as much as 10 percent or more.”

The statement characterized the framework as a “European-led neocolonial export of global climate regulations.”

It also stated that Washington was considering punitive actions against nations supporting the net-zero regulations, including potentially blocking vessels from these countries from U.S. ports, imposing visa restrictions for maritime crew, and instituting additional port fees on ships owned or operated by such nations.

Decarbonization Versus Deforestation

In an Oct. 9 statement, the World Shipping Council said that the global shipping industry backs the framework.

The coalition highlighted the importance of incentives to minimize risks involved in investing in new green marine fuels.

“Only global rules will decarbonise a global industry. Without the framework, shipping would risk a growing patchwork of unilateral regulations, increasing costs without effectively contributing to decarbonisation,” the council stated.

Earlier, in an April 11 statement, clean energy advocate European Federation for Transport and Environment warned that the framework would lead to massive deforestation.

Without strong sustainability rules, biofuels such as soybean and palm oil could end up becoming the first option for shippers looking to comply with IMO regulations, as these would be the cheapest fuel options, it stated.

“The uptake of these fuels could actually result in a disastrous increase of emissions if no precautions are considered as soon as possible,” it stated.

IMO’s regulations “will likely lead to the destruction of rainforests by promoting first-generation biofuels,” it warned in its statement.

In an Oct. 14 post on X, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis criticized the IMO’s proposed emission charges on global shipping.

“Being taxed by the UN would be far more offensive than the taxes imposed by Great Britain against the American colonies more than 250 years ago. Those taxes sparked the American Revolution. The UN should be defunded, not seeded with new tax revenue,” DeSantis wrote.