Contemporary societies are marked by constant tensions between the notion to improve sustainability and the reluctance to engage in uncertain changes. In any sector, the transition is a delicate and complex process that involves many actors, organizations, and institutions. Niche analysis approaches such as the multilevel perspective model (MLP) explain how such a process grows from innovation within a very restricted field to its generalized application on a global scale. Shipping is a sector particularly challenged by the transition process away from heavy fuel oil towards more environment-friendly alternatives such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) or even non-fossil alternatives. Within this industry, Norway stands as an early adopter and leader of the emerging transition. Drawing from a wide discussion of the treatment of scale in transition literature and from this national case study, we propose that the transition process can emerge not only from a local niche perspective, as widely documented in the literature, but can also be driven by changes at a much larger scale and initiated by new international regulations.