Climate-vulnerable island states say they are being trapped “between a rock and a hard place” by the European Union – led by the Netherlands and Denmark – after the bloc engaged in discussions on a proposal to clean up the global shipping industry that islands regard as ineffective and unjust.
On the sidelines of Singapore Maritime Week on Wednesday, representatives of the European Commission, Denmark and the Netherlands met with officials from China, Japan and Singapore. According to official notes from the meeting, seen by Climate Home, they talked about an emissions trading proposal known as “J9”, which was put on the table by Singapore at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in February during negotiations on a new pioneering system to tax pollution.
The J9 idea is an alternative to taxing all of a ship’s emissions as favoured initially by small island states and now supported by shipping-reliant nations like Panama and Liberia as well as the UK, Nigeria, Kenya and others. Some big emerging economies like Brazil and China have opposed a full levy, as they fear it will drive up shipping costs and put them at a disadvantage.
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Analysis by University College London says the J9 proposal will raise much less money for climate action and will promote short-term solutions like gas and biofuels, rather than zero-emission fuels based on green hydrogen.
Preparing to compromise
A full levy on a ship’s emissions remains the European Union’s preferred option – but IMO watchers say the bloc’s willingness to discuss details of the alternative proposal suggests it is preparing to accept it at crunch talks taking place over the next two weeks in London.
A Pacific negotiator familiar with the talks told Climate Home that the EU “have signalled quite confidently that they will take a compromise that will cede grounds to a levy”. “Once again, Europeans have locked the islands and many in the developing world between a rock and a hard place,” they added.
But a spokesperson for the Danish Maritime Authority said that Denmark and the EU still “clearly prefer a global greenhouse gas levy as part of the regulation”.
The talks in Singapore “were part of an informal dialogue with all IMO member states, including Pacific Island countries”, they noted, adding “the purpose was to explore the possibilities of reaching consensus at the IMO in case that neither the levy nor the Chinese-Brazilian proposed fuel standard would be acceptable in the final negotiations.”
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The Pacific negotiator said the J9 proposal “will not deliver” the emissions reductions governments agreed to aim for two years ago, including to reach net zero in the industry “close to 2050”.
The J9 proposal will raise some money for climate action by allowing shipowners who pollute more than they should to make up for it by buying “remedial units”, paying into the IMO’s net zero fund. But they will also be able to cancel out their excess emissions by buying credits from ships that have polluted below their limit – with the money going to the shipowners.
Not enough money raised
UCL researchers predict this system would raise just 5-25% of even a weak version of the carbon levy system the Pacific islands and others want. A full levy could raise tens of billions of dollars a year to invest in climate action and address the negative impacts of the green fuel measures on less-developed economies.
The head of an African environmental think-tank, who wanted to remain anonymous, told Climate Home that the J9 proposal “is not a desirable alternative for developing countries in Africa and would not provide the needed answer to raise climate finance”. On the other hand, Kenya’s climate envoy Ali Mohamed wrote in a recent article that the levy proposal would channel “vital funds” and be a “a precedent-setting move”.
The UCL analysis found that J9 would encourage investment in biofuels and fossil gas to power ships, leaving “no to little resources” to reward early adopters of zero-emission fuels based on green hydrogen like methanol and ammonia.
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The authors say this is because the J9 proposal would not provide certainty and clarity on the competitiveness of different clean fuel options, creating an incentive for shipowners to pursue short-term lower-emitting solutions rather than long-term fixes like zero emission fuels.
Last week’s talks at Singapore Maritime Week were informal. Official talks will begin at the IMO’s London headquarters on Monday. After a week behind closed doors, discussions will be opened up to the media for a week on April 7. By the end of that week, negotiators hope to have reached agreement on green measures that can be signed off at the IMO’s next environmental meeting in October.
The Pacific negotiator said small island nations are appealing for EU member states that are “far more progressive” than the Netherlands and Denmark to intervene. The Dutch ministry of infrastructure and water did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The post Small islands fear EU betrayal over shipping emissions levy appeared first on Climate Home News.
An Lambrechts is a biodiversity politics expert at Greenpeace International with extensive experience in biodiversity-related multilateral negotiations. She is the head of the Greenpeace delegation at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP17 happening in Yerevan, Armenia.
In 2022, COP15 delivered the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. With COP17 starting in Yerevan, we are now halfway to the deadline, and according to the first Global Review of progress, countries are not on track to meet the biodiversity targets, and implementation must accelerate fast.
One of the main findings of the Global Review is that funding falls far short of the scale needed to halt and reverse nature loss. But the crisis facing the world’s biodiversity is not an absolute scarcity of capital – it is a profound public policy distortion.
The global economy currently spends roughly $30 destroying nature for every single dollar invested in its protection. According to a report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, a staggering $2.4 trillion is spent in public subsidies for fossil fuels, agriculture and water use, while global investment in biodiversity conservation and restoration stands at a mere $220 billion.
Countries urged to ramp up “insufficient” nature policies at COP17
Yet, discussions about how to close the biodiversity finance gap continue to claim that salvation lies in mobilising private capital, scaling offsets and “derisking” investments in nature. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of both the nature of ecological stewardship and of the global financial architecture.
Biodiversity conservation is not a speculative investment portfolio – it is the foundation of human survival. The health of our planet is a non-monetisable, non-excludable public good. Expecting profit-seeking private capital to protect nature perpetuates the structural drivers of ecosystem destruction in the first place.
But if private market mechanisms cannot save biodiversity, where will the necessary public resources come from?
Money going to the wrong places
The answer lies in recovering the vast public wealth currently drained by cross-border tax abuse, financial secrecy and corporate impunity. Finance and environment ministers meeting in Yerevan must give a strong political signal that, to avert ecological breakdown, countries need to take swift action to reform global tax rules, eliminate harmful public subsidies and cancel unsustainable sovereign debts for the public revenues to end up where they belong.
Extractive sectors such as industrial agriculture, fishing, timber and mining continue business-as-usual, often heavily subsidised by public treasuries, while voluntary carbon and biodiversity offset markets pose a serious risk to nature conservation. Offset schemes have delivered only a negligible fraction of the funding needed to preserve ecosystems, allowing industries to continue with their destructive business-as-usual practices.
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In advanced economies, public funding often actively undermines biodiversity. In Europe, over €5.3 billion in public subsidies is funnelled annually into intensive forest biomass harvesting under renewable energy directives, degrading primary forest ecosystems and undermining long-term climate resilience. Pleading with private investors to fill a “finance gap” while pouring billions into ecological destruction is an exercise in futility.
Developing countries struggle with debt burden
For developing countries, reliance on private finance is further compounded by a crushing sovereign debt crisis. In 2024, public debt in developing economies reached record levels, with net interest payments alone absorbing $921 billion. A record 61 developing countries now spend more than 10% of government revenue on foreign debt service, with many climate-vulnerable nations spending twice as much servicing external debt as they receive in climate and biodiversity finance combined.
This burden acts as a structural driver of ecosystem destruction. Under pressure from external creditors and international financial institutions to avoid default and secure foreign exchange, governments are routinely forced into austerity measures and pushed to expand raw commodity exports into pristine biomes.
Comment: World Bank and IMF should lead the financial system in responding to the climate crisis
The current negotiations for a United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation (UNFCITC) also offer a way forward. An estimated $492 billion in tax revenue is lost every year to offshore tax havens. Multinational corporations account for around $348 billion of this total by shifting profits away from the countries where real economic extraction and environmental degradation occur.
In the mining sector alone, developing nations lose tens of billions annually to corporate tax dodging. Furthermore, international financial secrecy shields environmental criminals, with illicit financial flows from illegal logging draining between $51 billion and $152 billion annually.
At COP17, leaders must seize the opportunity to build a bridge between the two conventions and enhance cooperation. Governments must put the world on a firm path to securing predictable, sufficient, sovereign public finance for biodiversity conservation. It’s the only path to a restorative, rights-based future for people and the planet.
The post Protecting nature is a public duty, not a Wall Street profit opportunity appeared first on Climate Home News.
Protecting nature is a public duty, not a Wall Street profit opportunity
Climate Change
Greenpeace delivers 47 metre-long petition with half a million signatures to Woodside HQ following major gas protest
Greenpeace delivers 47 metre-long petition with half a million signatures to Woodside HQ following major gas protest
PERTH, Monday 19 October 2026 — Dozens of Perth community members delivered a giant petition, signed by almost half a million people, to Woodside’s corporate headquarters this morning, calling on the government to save Scott Reef from Woodside’s reckless Browse gas proposal.
Dressed in sea creature costumes and hats, supporters carried one of Australia’s biggest environmental petitions to Woodside’s headquarters, and a local choir performed a ‘Scott Reef’ rendition of Angie McMahon’s iconic cover of ‘Reckless’ by Australian Crawl.
On the sidelines of the Perth Global Citizen Now event, it comes following a two day-long protest at Woodside’s Scarborough gas platform that saw activists scale and occupy the Floating Production Unit calling to “Stop Woodside’s Dirty Gas” and “Save Scott Reef”. The activists were taken from the platform by police helicopter on Sunday afternoon.
David Ritter, CEO at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “Less than a day after two Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists were arrested for their peaceful protest at Woodside’s Scarborough gas platform to save Scott Reef, we are here again with another message to Woodside: half a million of us do not want your dirty gas at Scott Reef.
“Community pressure on Woodside is rising. Today we are here to show Woodside that they can’t ignore half a million people who want Scott Reef protected, not turned into an industrialised gas zone.
“Woodside can’t be trusted with our oceans. Woodside’s plans to drill up to 57 toxic wells at Scott Reef, Australia’s largest oceanic reef, putting endangered pygmy blue whales at risk, and jeopardising a nesting ground for unique green sea turtles.
“We Australians love our oceans and this is an opportunity for our governments to do the right thing, to reject Woodside’s reckless drilling plans, and save Scott Reef.”
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Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or Emma Sangalli on +61 431 513 465
Climate Change
Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists in police custody after two-day protest against Woodside’s Browse gas project at Scott Reef
PERTH, Sunday 18 October 2026 — Two Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists are in police custody after occupying a gas platform at Woodside’s Scarborough gas project, in peaceful protest of the fossil fuel corporation’s plans to drill for oil and gas at Scott Reef.
NEW footage and photos of the peaceful protest available here and on Instagram
The activists used specialised climbing equipment to scale and attach themselves to a Floating Production Unit (FPU), a key piece of gas processing infrastructure at the Scarborough gas field over 200km off the coast of Exmouth, at around 05:45am AWST on Saturday and proceeded to occupy the platform for two days, displaying banners reading “Stop Woodside’s Dirty Gas. Save Scott Reef.”
Special police forces landed a helicopter on the FPU at around 11:30am AWST. The activists safely removed themselves from their equipment before being taken into police custody around 1:00pm AWST. At the time of writing, no charges have been laid.
David Ritter, CEO at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “It takes guts and conviction to do what our activists have done, peacefully protesting Woodside’s reckless gas plans at Scott Reef.
“Woodside’s plans to drill up to 57 toxic wells at Scott Reef are outrageous. If allowed to go ahead Woodside would turn Scott Reef, Australia’s largest oceanic reef, home to nesting green sea turtles and elusive pygmy blue whales, into an industrial gas zone. Around half a million people have called on our governments to stop Woodside and to save Scott Reef.
“Our activists are highly trained and experienced in these activities. West Australia has a proud history of peaceful, democratic protest at sea, to protect our oceans from environmental threats. From whaling in Albany in the seventies, to Woodside’s threat to Scott Reef today, there’s more than fifty years of history, of Greenpeace taking action off WA’s coast to protect the places we love.
“Peaceful protest has long been part of what has given us so many of the things that are great about Australia and is part of the fabric of our democracy and our national identity.”
“The right to peaceful protest is fundamental to a healthy democracy. From Australia to the Arctic and the Amazon, Greenpeace has been peacefully protesting for more than 50 years to expose the biggest environmental threats around the world. We will not be silenced by corporations like Woodside who actively try to stop everyday people from speaking out against their reckless plans.
“Woodside’s reckless proposal to drill at Scott Reef is an unacceptable risk to Scott Reef and to the climate, which our government should emphatically reject.”
Speaking from the Rainbow Warrior, Captain of the Rainbow Warrior Hettie Geenen, said:
“It felt powerful watching from the Rainbow Warrior as these brave activists scaled Woodside’s enormous and imposing gas infrastructure, which has no place at Scott Reef. We are all out here because we feel an urge to act, in the face of Woodside’s grave threat to Scott Reef and to our climate. Now we ask for the Australian government to act too, and reject Woodside’s reckless Browse project.
“Just before this peaceful protest, the Rainbow Warrior sailed to Scott Reef, where our whole crew got to witness the magic of an untouched, healthy reef ecosystem full of marine life. It was my second time visiting Scott Reef with the Rainbow Warrior. When you see Scott Reef up close and witness its magic first hand, it is impossible not to feel driven to try and protect it.”
The activists sailed to Scarborough on the Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace’s flagship vessel, which is in the region campaigning to protect Australia’s oceans, including Scott Reef.
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Media contact
Greenpeace Australia Pacific media team in Perth on +61 406 231 892 or +61 407 581 404 or email media.au@greenpeace.org
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