The Patriot Post® · UN Punts on Shipping Carbon Tax

After a little-noticed UN proposal for “international tax cooperation” sponsored by African nations passed last year, some of its initial fruit was a proposal to enact a global tax on shipping.

As described by the editors of The Wall Street Journal, “The International Maritime Organization (IMO), a U.N. body based in London, hopes at its meeting this week to secure final approval for its ‘net-zero framework’ for shipping. The measure would impose charges per metric ton of carbon dioxide that ships emit above certain limits; the tax would be $100 or $380 per metric ton, depending on various factors. That could translate to an annual tax take of $10 billion-$12 billion.”

Needless to say, there were some serious caveats to this proposal, the biggest being that member nations would determine the amount of the tax by inspecting other nations’ ships at their ports. Imagine how stringent any inspection of an American-flagged ship would be. And if a vessel didn’t pay the tax, it could be impounded by the host nation. As Not the Bee asked in meme form, what could possibly go wrong?

Since the United States is only one of many votes on this UN proposal, it appeared to be headed for passage — and perhaps, under a different administration, it would have been. Then American consumers would have been saddled with paying for an income redistribution scheme they never voted on. Instead, the Trump administration, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, announced the following as part of a statement urging the UN to defeat the 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. The economic impacts from this measure could be disastrous, with some estimates forecasting global shipping costs increasing as much as 10% or more. We ask you to join us in rejecting adoption of the NZF at the October meeting and to work together on our collective economic and energy security.

The NZF proposal poses significant risks to the global economy and subjects not just Americans, but all IMO member states to an unsanctioned global tax regime that levies punitive and regressive financial penalties, which could be avoided.

The series of five sticks threatened in the joint statement was compelling enough to force the UN body to punt on the motion. Knowing a vote against the NZF would have killed the tax permanently, the IMO adopted, by a 57-49 margin, a Saudi proposal to postpone the vote for one year. “You have one year to negotiate and talk and come to consensus,” said Arsenio Dominguez, the secretary general of the International Maritime Organization.

“Faced with pressure, too many governments chose political compromise over climate justice, and in doing so, abandoned the countries bearing the brunt of the climate crisis,” complained Emma Fenton, a senior director for the UK-based climate change nonprofit Opportunity Green.

“The IMO’s failure to adopt the framework this week marks a failure of this United Nations agency to act decisively on climate change,” added Ralph Regenvanu, minister for climate change for the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu — a nation that would certainly be the beneficiary of a tax that the WSJ editors predicted would be “another income redistribution scheme for whatever ideas the U.N. bureaucracy deems worthy.” They added, “If you think handouts to non-democratic countries for vaguely defined ‘climate’ purposes will be administered scrupulously in the public interest, we’ve got a carbon-neutral barge to sell you.”

Unfortunately, the Saudi postponement means the UN will just play a waiting game, either until the Trump administration relents, or — more likely — a change in the government saddles us with the next Democrat or RINO president. And it could be next year, as there are enough nations out there that will risk the wrath of Trump, particularly after the world gets together later this year in Brazil for the COP30 climate change conference.

“It’s an attempt by climate-obsessed politicians to entrench their agenda before voters in democracies can kill it,” argues the Journal. While even Greta Thunberg has lost interest in the global warming cause now, having sold out for “Palestine” instead, it only takes one vote by the nations of the world that still bow at the altar of Gaia to stick the world’s hands in our wallets yet again.