‘Trump is escalating his fight against a global UN carbon tax’ – ‘Trump wants to bury this climate tax at sea’

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/power-switch/2026/02/26/trump-wants-to-bury-this-climate-tax-at-sea-00801764

By ARIANNA SKIBELL

Excerpt: President Donald Trump is escalating his fight against a global carbon tax — in a move that could tank a major effort to curb a persistent source of planet-warming pollution.

The State Department is drafting a diplomatic memo advising countries against adopting a carbon tax on shipping pollution, along with a broader climate initiative called the Net-Zero Framework, writes Sara Schonhardt.

The memo says the United States “will not tolerate” the creation of a fund that uses carbon tax revenue to help lower the shipping industry’s climate pollution, which accounts for roughly 3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

It comes after the Trump administration threatened to slap tariffs on any nation that supported the carbon tax, which the U.N. International Maritime Organization spent years negotiating with dozens of countries that were poised to vote on the initiative last fall.

The vote was delayed for a year. Two of Trump’s Cabinet secretaries described the campaign to block the tax as an “all hands on deck” effort. Now Trump wants to bury it at sea for good.

The Net-Zero Framework would make it financially advantageous for companies to use cleaner shipping fuels, with the goal of achieving net-zero maritime climate pollution by mid-century.

Ships that didn’t meet the increasingly strict emissions standards would pay a fee, which would fund a shift to cleaner fuels and support developing countries.

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