Regulatory Future: What immediate and long-term impact will the one-year NZF postponement have on global investment and the potential for regulatory fragmentation (e.g., between the IMO and the EU ETS)?
The one-year postponement of the NZF vote is far more than a technical delay and represents a constructive and necessary recalibration rather than a setback. It acknowledges the reality that global decarbonization cannot be achieved through regulatory ambition alone, but must be underpinned by fuel availability, mature technology, viable infrastructure, and workable economics. By pausing final adoption, IMO has effectively recognized that premature enforcement of a global fuel standard and carbon pricing mechanism, without a functioning supply chain, risked creating distortion, stranded assets, and unintended consequences across global trade.
In turn it creates a vacuum at the global level which markets will immediately fill with regional and unilateral measures. In the short term, we will see investment decisions continue, but with a strong bias toward flexibility rather than final choices: owners, banks and yards will gravitate to designs that preserve options, dual-fuel capable engines, higher efficiency hulls, hybrid systems and energy-saving retrofits that make sense irrespective of the eventual fuel pathway. At the same time, the absence of a clear IMO trajectory allows regimes such as the EU ETS and FuelEU Maritime to become the de facto reference points for carbon policy at sea, embedding a risk of regulatory fragmentation that will not disappear quickly. In the longer term, if the IMO does not deliver a coherent and credible pathway, we risk a structurally asymmetric landscape where compliance costs, competitive positions and even access to capital differ sharply between regions. That would be damaging both for global trade and for the credibility of multilateral rulemaking at sea. Until we have clarity, the rational response from investors will be to avoid “irreversible” bets and focus on assets that can be competitive under more than one regulatory scenario.
It allows real-world data to inform policy, gives fuel producers and ports time to scale infrastructure, and enables shipowners and financiers to make investment decisions based on clarity rather than uncertainty. Shipping has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to adapt when rules are technically and economically sound. The NZF postponement therefore strengthens, rather than weakens, the path to decarbonization by ensuring that when the framework is finally implemented, it will be effective, credible, and capable of delivering genuine emissions reductions.
Geopolitical Turbulence: How should shipping companies adjust their operations and trade routes in 2026 to maintain stability amidst ongoing global conflicts and trade protectionism?
Geopolitical risk is no longer a tail event; it has become a permanent feature of the shipping operating environment. Conflicts around key chokepoints, expanding sanctions regimes, industrial policy, and rising trade protectionism are structurally reshaping the flows of energy, commodities, and manufactured goods. In this context, “stability” in 2026 will not come from accurate geopolitical forecasting, but from operational optionality: multiple routing alternatives, diversified port exposure, and flexible commercial arrangements. The winners will not be those who guess geopolitics correctly, but those planned to switch routes, counterparties, and exposure faster than risk, policy, or insurance conditions change. This requires diversification away from single corridors or cargo types, faster redeployment of tonnage as trade patterns shift, and chartering strategies that distribute risk more intelligently between owners and cargo interests. Increasingly, political and security intelligence must feed directly into commercial decision-making, shaping routing, speed, positioning, and even fleet composition. Balance-sheet resilience, limited concentration risk, and commercial agility will define which companies can pivot as arbitrage windows open and close. In an environment of shorter planning horizons, the ability to reprice and reposition faster than competitors becomes a decisive strategic advantage.
The Red Sea illustrates how acute geopolitical shocks evolve into prolonged, hybrid states of uncertainty rather than clean resolutions. Even with a ceasefire in place, 2026 is unlikely to mark an immediate return to pre-crisis routing behavior. Commercial risk models, underwriter pricing, and charterparty terms have been fundamentally altered. Many operators will remain cautious until safe-passage protocols are consistently proven, and insurers materially downgrade threat assessments. As a result, Suez transits are likely to resume gradually and selectively, depending on vessel type, cargo, flag, and individual risk appetite, rather than through a full-scale normalization. Longer Cape of Good Hope diversions will therefore remain partially embedded in trade patterns well into mid-2026, sustaining elevated tonne-mile demand and influencing capacity allocation across several segments. The broader lesson is clear: even after hostilities subside, commercial consequences persist far longer than headlines suggest. Geopolitical recovery in shipping is rarely instantaneous; it is staggered, conditional, and uneven.
More broadly, geopolitics must now be treated as a structural input into shipping strategy rather than a temporary disruption. Trade fragmentation, US–China tensions, regional conflicts, and national energy-security priorities are redefining tonne-mile demand and fleet deployment on a lasting basis. In this environment, disciplined risk management, scenario-based planning, and operational resilience become core competitive advantages. Companies that integrate security assessment, sanctions compliance, insurance, and commercial planning into a unified decision-making framework will be best positioned to absorb shocks without surrendering cost control or strategic coherence. Ultimately, 2026 will reward shipping companies that design their operations for uncertainty, because in today’s market, adaptability has become the most durable form of stability.
Decarbonization Reality: Which transitional fuels or technologies will gain realistic, scalable traction in 2026, and what role will the industry need to play to mitigate the lack of regulatory clarity?
In 2026, decarbonization at sea will be driven less by spectacular new fuels and more by pragmatic, scalable efficiency gains. We will see continued expansion of LNG even though it is a transitional fuel, in segments and regions where the infrastructure and commercial logic already exist, but we see constraints for LNG to become a universal solution. Ammonia, methanol and hydrogen, while heavily discussed, will remain constrained by safety concerns, energy density, cost and the lack of mature supply chains. From a shipbroker’s perspective, where commercial viability and return on invested capital remain the core metrics, the economics of alternative fuels must be viewed with realism rather than aspiration. Today, a green methanol–fueled voyage can cost anywhere from three to six times more than a voyage powered by conventional HFO. Even when factoring in every possible benefit, zero operational emissions, carbon-credit pooling advantages, and the absence of ETS or equivalent carbon levies, the cost gap remains so wide that no charterer is prepared to pay a meaningful premium for a methanol-powered ship. And without a charter premium, the substantial additional capital required to build or convert a vessel to methanol capability simply cannot be justified when compared with a conventionally fueled design.
What will gain the most realistic traction are technologies that work with any fuel and reduce consumption and emissions immediately: advanced hull coatings, propeller and rudder upgrades, air lubrication systems, waste heat recovery, hybridization with shaft generators and batteries, and digital optimization of routes and speed. These measures cut both fuel bills and exposure to schemes like the EU ETS, and they strengthen the earning profile of existing tonnage in a market where shipyard capacity cannot replace the ageing fleet at the pace policymakers imagine. In the absence of full regulatory clarity, the role of the industry is to keep moving forward on what is measurable and bankable, efficiency and retrofit realism, while insisting that regulators align ambition with technical and financial feasibility. Owners, charterers, banks and yards will all need to collaborate more closely on data, risk-sharing and standard-setting so that when the long-term regulatory picture finally clears, the fleet is already significantly cleaner and more efficient, rather than frozen by indecision.
In a decade where everyone talks about disruption, shipping’s real edge in 2026 will be old-fashioned virtues: discipline, flexibility and realism. The fog around regulation and geopolitics may persist, but those who stay efficient, keep their options open and move before the rules are perfectly clear will be the ones writing the next chapter of this industry, not merely reading it.
An additional note:
On COP & MEPC – Real value or global theatre?
Let’s be frank. Both the COP (UNFCCC) and IMO’s MEPC forums have dual natures. They are political stages, often platforms for virtue signaling, lobbying, and greenwashing. Entire industries, NGOs, and consultancies have grown around the “climate-conference economy,” where influence and funding follow headlines rather than measurable progress. Many participants indeed make money by managing the narrative, selling “carbon neutrality,” “offsets,” or “transition strategies” that sound impressive but deliver limited real decarbonization.
Yet, they also serve real structural purposes. Without these global mechanisms, there would be no coordination for collective action, no Paris Agreement, no MRV systems, no EEXI/CII standards, no EU ETS alignment. The flaw lies not in the forum, but in fragmented political will, unrealistic timelines, and the constant tension between ambition and practicality.
So, in essence, COP and MEPC are not to be dismissed, but they are undeniably slow, politicized, and often hijacked by vested interests. They produce frameworks that eventually evolve into enforceable rules (as MARPOL, EEXI, and CII did). Still, a substantial portion of the process remains public-relations theatre until economics, technology, and energy security converge to make real change feasible.
The energy transition will ultimately happen, not because of speeches or resolutions, but when renewables, alternative fuels, and carbon-neutral logistics become cheaper, scalable, and geopolitically secure. Only then will markets, not ministers, drive decarbonization.
Until that moment, the irony remains: the world will keep burning oil, even at COP30, to power the lights for speeches about ending oil.
*President Hellenic Shipbrokers Association
