Shipping Lags Behind on 2030 Zero-Emission Fuel Targets

Industry Falls Short of 2030 Fuel Transition Milestones

A newly released study from the UCL Energy Institute indicates that shipping is unlikely to hit its 2030 targets for adoption of alternative fuels, largely because of continued uncertainty around the IMO’s Net-Zero Framework (NZF). According to reporting by The Maritime Executive, the fifth edition of the ‘Climate action in shipping’ report — produced with the Getting to Zero Coalition — tracks progress toward the goal set out in the 2023 IMO Greenhouse Gas Strategy, which called for zero-emission fuels to make up 5-10 percent of total marine fuel consumption by decade’s end.

That 2030 ambition was meant to translate into roughly 600-1,200 large vessels of at least 15,000 TEU equivalent running on scalable zero-emission fuels. The report notes that even an interim milestone — around 100 such vessels in service by 2025 — was not reached, a sign that the broader 2030 trajectory is increasingly out of reach.

What’s Holding the Transition Back

The study points to a combination of economic and geopolitical headwinds: instability in the Strait of Hormuz, energy security concerns, supply chain disruption, and, critically, the regulatory limbo created when the NZF failed to gain adoption. Pinar Langer, a research fellow at the UCL Energy Institute, is quoted calling the NZF’s non-adoption “the single most transition-regressive event” observed across the five years the report has been produced. She argues that restoring regulatory clarity is essential to give owners confidence to order zero-emission tonnage, lenders a reason to finance it, and charterers an incentive to pay for lower-carbon capacity.

Pockets of Progress

Despite the overall shortfall, the report highlights gains across several of the levers it tracks — technology and fuel supply, demand, finance, policy, and civil society engagement. Methanol bunkering availability has grown, now offered at 29 ports compared with 19 a year earlier. The sector also saw sea trials of large ammonia-fueled vessels with two-stroke engines, construction of smaller ammonia-powered support craft, and the industry’s first ship-to-ship ammonia bunkering operation.

Methanol-capable container ship deliveries also picked up meaningfully in 2025, with in-service methanol-capable tonnage more than tripling from 2.3 million to 7.7 million gross tonnage — the largest single-year jump recorded so far, driven by 56 newbuilds totaling 5.4 million GT. That pushed the zero-emission-fuel-capable share of the active fleet up from 0.41 percent to 0.77 percent.

The order book tells a less encouraging story, however: the share of new orders capable of running on scalable zero-emission fuels actually declined, from 9.5 percent to 5.7 percent of total gross tonnage ordered. Financing activity was similarly mixed, with sustainable shipping debt — green bonds, green loans, sustainability-linked loans and transition finance — falling from about $3.4 billion in 2024 to roughly $3 billion in 2025.

What It Means for Owners and Managers

For ship owners, managers, and charterers, this report underscores a widening gap between stated industry ambition and the commercial reality of newbuild decisions. Falling order-book share for zero-emission-capable tonnage suggests that, absent clear and stable regulation, many owners are reluctant to commit capital to alternative-fuel designs — a rational response to unresolved questions about compliance costs and fuel availability. In the meantime, operators running conventional and transitional-fuel vessels face a longer runway of mixed propulsion types, aging engines, and evolving bunkering infrastructure, all of which raise the stakes for rigorous bunker quantity and quality surveys, engine condition monitoring, and pre-purchase due diligence. As ports expand methanol and ammonia bunkering capability unevenly, owners bringing dual-fuel or alternative-fuel vessels into new trades will need independent verification of fuel handling, storage conditions, and engine performance to manage both commercial and safety risk during this uncertain transition period.

The Road Ahead

With the Net-Zero Framework still unresolved, the report frames regulatory clarity as the single biggest unlock for accelerating fleet renewal. Until that clarity arrives, the data suggests shipping will continue making incremental technological gains — more bunkering ports, more capable newbuilds — without the order-book momentum needed to close the gap to 2030 targets.

Reviewed by Ibrahim Halil Ceylan, Marine Surveyor at Apeks Marine.