Ships are paying their carbon bills: companies surrendered allowances covering more than 99% of their obligations by the September 2025 deadline. What three years of the regime have not yet demonstrated is what happens to anyone who should not be trusted. Asked whether the monitoring system's data was fully fit for enforcement and policy support, eight of the 16 national authorities answering a survey for the European Commission said yes; six called it partly fit and two not fit at all. The evaluation behind July's plan to merge shipping's overlapping reporting regimes found no sign of misreporting, but concedes that penalty data and key quality indicators are not yet published, limiting its own ability to assess how the system performs.
The common thread. In the same week, a second study for the Commission's climate department flagged the same issue at global level: the deduction designed to spare owners from paying twice, in Brussels and at the IMO, would put the EU carbon market's environmental integrity at risk if the global regulator's verification and enforcement prove insufficiently robust. Twice, the executive's own consultants landed on the enforcement layer as the untested part of the machine. Neither study says it is failing; both say it cannot yet be observed, at home because the experience with penalties is too limited to assess, abroad because the scheme it would police is still under discussion in London.
The trade-off. The Parliament's lead negotiator on the ETS revision, meanwhile, is offering shipping more time in exchange for a guaranteed phase-out. His draft report would extend some of the carbon market's maritime exemptions, due to lapse at the end of 2030, to 2040, with the special treatment shrinking every year so that investment in cleaner ships can begin on a known schedule; the Commission's July text had offered 2035 with another revision pencilled in for 2033, an arrangement he said gives predictability to no one, while shipowners had asked for the exemptions to be made permanent. The derogations are the only issue in the negotiator's draft report; Mediterranean carbon leakage and a stronger tilt towards e-fuels are left to the amendment stage.
Ship recycling. EU Member States are due to debate this month whether two beaching yards at Alang join the European List of approved recycling facilities, with a vote to be organised in the coming weeks. Campaigners describe substantial opposition in the Council; shipowners urge swift adoption and more Indian listings, citing an estimated 16,000 ships due for recycling over the next decade. The Commission denies any change of position on beaching.
There is much more in this week's coverage, including the claim that Washington threatened the children of IMO climate negotiators, the story of the ice-class gas carrier bound for a Danish repair yard, and whether shipping is drifting back to a pre-1945 legal order, at maritimewatch.eu, alongside an archive of more than five thousand articles. Free trials on request to editor@maritimewatch.eu.