This case study presents a complementary quantitative stakeholder analysis of the potential impacts of the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) candidate mid-term greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction measures on Namibia’s trade-dependent economy. As a coastal member state of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Namibia relies heavily on maritime transport to export key commodities—particularly uranium and fish—and to import essential goods such as petroleum. The IMO’s Revised GHG Strategy and associated policy architectures therefore carry significant implications for Namibia’s economic resilience and trade competitiveness.
Building on the IMO-led Comprehensive Impact Assessment (CIA) framework, the study applies a structured quantitative approach to assess the cost impacts of four leading policy scenarios: a Global Fuel Intensity (GFI) flexibility mechanism, low-levy, high-levy, and feebate-based approaches. The analysis focuses on three economically significant trade flows—uranium exports, fish exports, and petroleum imports—evaluated against a business-as-usual baseline across short-, medium-, and long-term horizons (2030, 2040, and 2050).
The findings show that all scenarios lead to higher maritime transport costs over time, with differentiated impacts across commodities. Petroleum imports experience the largest cost increases, followed by fish exports, while uranium exports are comparatively less affected. Flexibility-based approaches provide short-term cost relief but result in higher cumulative costs in the long term. Levy-based scenarios impose higher short- to medium-term costs but stabilise over time, driven by efficiency gains and technological improvements, while also generating potential revenues that could offset adverse impacts.
Overall, the Namibia case study highlights the trade-offs between short-term economic relief and long-term cost predictability under different IMO policy options. It underscores the need for balanced policy design, targeted capacity building, and consideration of revenue recycling and international support mechanisms to ensure that maritime decarbonisation efforts align with Namibia’s development priorities and support a just and equitable transition.
