Two UN agencies are making plans to tax shipping and aviation, globally, for their greenhouse gas emissions. If successful, the UN’s carbon taxes would add to inflation worldwide and consolidate shipping and aviation into fewer, larger companies.
We should remind ourselves that the UN is a non-governmental organisation run by a handful, relatively, of unelected people who have no authority to tax citizens or companies in democratic countries.
“A cornerstone of democracy is that citizens decide who taxes them. Magna Carta enshrined the principle of consent for taxation; and the American Revolution rallied around the slogan ‘No taxation without representation’,” The Telegraph noted. “The UN’s plan to levy taxes on global trade is a sinister power grab.”
The International Maritime Organisation (“IMO”), an agency of the United Nations (“UN”), is finalising a draft “regulation” for a universal levy or tax on greenhouse gas emissions. A formal vote is scheduled for October 2026 and implementation in 2027.
Called the IMO Net-zero Framework, they are amendments to MARPOL Annex VI, the primary international “regulation” under the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, adopted in 1997 and entered into force in May 2005.
The Framework was approved by the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (“MEPC”) in April 2025. It was set to be formally adopted at a specially convened MEPC meeting in October 2025, but the decision was delayed to a MEPC meeting in October 2026.
The MEPC is a specialised body within the IMO. In other words, it is a group of unnamed, unknown people taking directions from other unnamed, unknown people about a draft that has not been distributed to taxpayers worldwide for their consideration. For all we know, it is the same small group of people who drafted, approved and are seeking to adopt the text.
To access the draft, the IMO insists the public create an account: “To access the IMO Net-Zero Framework approved draft regulations and all documents for MEPC Extraordinary Session 2, please visit IMODOCS and create your free account,” it says.
If you choose to create an account, no doubt the UN will be glad to add your details to their centralised database to do who knows what with. To save our readers the risk of handing their personal details over to the UN, we have provided a link to a copy of the 121-page draft. We found this link at the bottom of Wikipedia’s page, it may or may not be the latest draft:’ Draft revised MARPOL Annex VI’ (11 April 2025).
“Once adopted, under the tacit acceptance procedure, the regulations are expected to enter into force 16 months later at which point governments will be responsible for enforcing them,” the IMO says. It sounds like the IMO needs to go back to school and learn about the differences between democracy and autocracy.
So, what has the IMO drafted and approved for adoption at its meeting later this year?
Below, Centrist has summarised The Telegraph’s article, as quoted in the summary at the beginning of this article, which is raising the alarm about the IMO’s proposed global tax contained in the Net-zero Framework.
Two United Nations agencies are moving toward emissions charges on global shipping and aviation, prompting warnings that unelected international bodies are gaining tax-like powers over major sectors of the world economy.
Writing in The Telegraph, energy policy scholar Brenda Shaffer argues that the International Maritime Organisation (“IMO”) and International Civil Aviation Organisation (“ICAO”) are seeking to impose costs on shipping and air travel without democratic accountability.
The IMO’s proposed Net-Zero Framework includes a global fuel standard and greenhouse gas emissions pricing mechanism for shipping.
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