Philippos Ioulianou, managing director of EmissionLink, writes for Splash today. If 2025 was meant to be the year shipping sprinted towards a clean-fuel future, it never quite got off the starting blocks. We are ending the year with a familiar scenario: ambitious targets, unclear routes, uneven enforcement and an industry being pushed faster than the fuel ecosystem can deliver. Looking ahead, 2026 will be less about a breakthrough fuel and more about managing interim compliance, fragmented policy and hard commercial choices. That is what happens when regulation runs ahead of supply chains, and politics runs ahead of practicality. The IMO’s net-zero ambition will stay on the horizon, but the timeline will slip beyond the “one-year delay” currently being promised. Further meetings will not deliver a global fuel rulebook, only another attempt to reformulate something politically workable. The IMO is not a fiscal regulator like the EU. It can set direction, but it cannot stipulate uniform enforcement across states with different economic pressures and governance capacity. Integrating every flag state into one system means more bureaucracy and slower consensus. For shipowners, 2026 will be heavy on regulatory signals but light on certainty. FuelEU Maritime, meanwhile, is becoming the industry’s test case. It is no longer “incoming”; it is here, and attitudes to emissions reporting have already shifted. Expect more of the same as biofuels continue to be trialled, with patchy supply and painful pricing. Pooling is attractive because it is cheaper and simpler. Digital optimisation will move from “nice to have” to core compliance. Predictive emissions tracking, underpinned by digital twins of vessels and voyages, will become essential to stay ahead of FuelEU calculations. As such, secure, audit-ready MRV data will become a daily requirement. Who pays for FuelEU emissions is set to become a battleground with ship owners and charters, testing long-established business practices. As a result, charterers will increasingly select vessels not on freight rate alone, but on emissions profile, digital transparency and the credibility of reported data. Slow steaming will remain a favoured decarbonisation tactic, where it does not break service commitments. Globally, a clean consensus on fuels is unrealistic. Governments need revenue, especially as defence bills climb, and carbon pricing is a convenient way to raise it. That does not mean they are abandoning climate goals, but it does reshape policy around fiscal needs. Expect more wrangling over credits, eligibility and exceptions, including renewed arguments over LNG and bio-LNG. Scope 3 reporting will widen the gap between trades under real customer pressure and everyone else. Listed cargo owners who must report supply-chain emissions need reductions today, not theoretical 2030 pathways. That means more demand for certified biofuels, bio-LNG, pooling and demonstrable operational savings. So what should owners do in 2026? The global rulebook is not aligned, supply chains are not ready, and pricing is still unpredictable. Next year is about buying optionality by way of pooling to manage exposure; selective biofuel use where supply exists; LNG and bio-LNG where the rules allow; and relentless operational efficiency, supported by services that actively monitor emissions, such as EmissionLink. Finally, follow the money. Europe is collecting revenue through ETS and FuelEU. If that cash flows back into fuel su