RT reported that on Oct. 1, the European Union launched the first phase of a new Green scheme to impose a tariff on greenhouse gas emissions embedded in imported products such as iron, steel, aluminum, cement, electricity, fertilizers, and hydrogen.
During this first phase until January 2026, the new system, called the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, will collect data on “carbon-intensive” imports. EU importers are now required to report the greenhouse gas emission embedded in the production of the above products. Beginning on Jan. 1, 2026, they will have to buy certificates to “cover” these estimated carbon dioxide emissions, leading to increased prices for goods imported by the EU.
RT reported: “The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism is supposed to prevent more polluting foreign products from undermining the green transition. The measure will potentially protect local producers from losing out to foreign competitors, while they invest in meeting EU targets to cut the bloc’s net emissions by 55% compared to 1990 levels, by 2030.”
S&PGlobal reported in March 2020, that the tax was concocted in 2020, and at that time, the EU Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni promoted it under the guise of “protecting local producers,” and cheerfully asserted that one of the main areas that the tax would impact would be electricity. S&PGlobal wrote: “The EU currently imports electricity from non-EU countries such as Ukraine, Russia and Serbia, and now also the U.K. as a newly non-EU country.…
“The [European Commission] is being careful not to describe the mechanism as a tax, both because of the WTO implications and because all EU-level tax proposals need unanimous approval from EU governments to become binding, which is very difficult to achieve.
“The planned mechanism is part of the EC’s new European Green Deal strategy intended to make the EU climate-neutral by 2050.”
This “mechanism” will undoubtedly increase tensions between the EU and Washington (the U.S. had asked for an exemption for its steel and iron exports), as well as within the EU itself. In a Sept. 11 interview with Politico, as RT reported, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner attacked “European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s proposed ‘Green Deal’ package of climate legislation. It would mandate the renovation of older buildings in order to ‘decarbonize’ the housing stock by 2050…. Lindner described the plan as ‘enormously dangerous’ and said it could endanger ‘social peace’ because ‘people might get the impression that the policy makes it harder for them to live in their own homes and be able to pay for it.’”
