The road to net zero: Status and prospects

The “Revised 2023 IMO Strategy” was adopted in the 80th session of the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC 80) of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in July 2023 and supersedes the “Initial IMO Strategy” that was adopted at MEPC 72 in April 2018. It has set, among other things, even more ambitious targets to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from ships, and purports to express a strong political will to phase them out as soon as possible. The most ambitious of these targets is to reduce GHG emissions from shipping to net zero by or around 2050. A bit more than a year since the adoption of the Revised 2023 IMO Strategy, this paper takes stock at the status of shipping decarbonisation and attempts to assess prospects for the future.