From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

“… Funds must flow directly and predictably to developing nations …”

Mar 24, 2025 

Comment, Finance, Politics

It’s time for shipping to launch first global tax on a polluting sector

Ambassador Ali Mohamed

Decarbonising the seas is a strategic imperative for a sustainable trade system that can also generate climate finance for vulnerable countries

Ambassador Ali Mohamed is Kenya’s Special Envoy for Climate Change.

Kenya is a frontline casualty of the climate crisis. Escalating temperatures, unpredictable rainfall, and prolonged droughts are slashing food production, depleting water resources, and destabilising our economy. Our coastal ecosystems, vital to the “blue economy”, are besieged by rising sea levels, coral bleaching, and accelerating erosion.

These are not abstract threats; they are dismantling the livelihoods of millions of Kenyans who depend on agriculture and marine resources. Yet Kenya’s plight is not self-inflicted. Industrialised nations, with their outsized historical emissions, bear primary responsibility for this crisis. Under the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, those who fuelled climate change must lead in funding solutions. 

A proposed carbon levy on the shipping industry offers a transformative opportunity, one Kenya urgently supports, to deliver climate finance where it’s most needed while decarbonizing a critical global sector.

The shipping industry, a linchpin of global trade, stands poised to pioneer a new era of climate finance. At the UN International Maritime Organisation (IMO), governments are nearing agreement on a carbon levy on shipping emissions, with a decision slated for April 2025 at the Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) 83 summit in London. 

If enacted, this would be the first universal tax on an international polluting sector, a precedent-setting move. The World Bank estimates this levy could raise $60 billion annually, channeling vital funds into climate adaptation and mitigation for vulnerable nations like Kenya.

…

Equity is equally critical. Funds must flow directly and predictably to developing nations, bypassing the bureaucratic quagmires that have long throttled Global South access to climate finance. …
…Read more:

https://www.climatechangenews.com/2025/03/24/its-time-for-shipping-to-launch-first-global-tax-on-a-polluting-sector/

Obviously, this particular demand is a case of bad timing. But Kenya or some other African or “global south” delegate repeats this demand pretty much every year. You never know, if nations like Kenya keep begging, sooner or later someone might cave in and give them money.

Not that Kenya needs money. According to CIA World Facebook Kenya had a GDP of $314 billion in 2023, comparable to the economy of Finland. They can afford their own climate action.