A Carbon Border Adjustment (CBA) mechanism is a tool to support the EU's climate leadership by reflecting the carbon intensity of products imported into the EU, such as steel. This mechanism is important because EU producers have the highest environmental and climate protection goals in the world - and higher production costs that accompany this effort.
The European steel industry is therefore at very high risk of carbon leakage - the loss of sales to cheaply-priced, carbon-intense imports. Avoiding the risk of carbon leakage is a pre-condition for preserving both the environmental integrity of EU climate policy and industrial competitiveness since it contributes to reducing emissions at a global level while maintaining jobs and investments in Europe. This will also be instrumental in facilitating the social acceptance of EU leadership in climate ambition.
The European Green Deal underlines that the risk of carbon leakage can materialise in different forms, 'either because production is transferred from the EU to other countries with lower ambition for emission reduction, or because EU products are replaced by more carbon-intensive imports'. As long as there is no international binding agreement with a global carbon price and equivalent efforts, it is essential that the EU legislation adopts effective measures that avoid all forms of leakage in the short and medium terms.
The carbon border adjustment measure should be applied for a transition period until breakthrough technologies reach sufficient market penetration and CO2-lean products represent a critical mass in the market. It represents a broader contribution to a clean planet, as it is also an effective tool of political diplomacy to foster climate ambition in third countries so that deeper emission reductions are delivered globally.
Brussels, 01 July 2022 – The upcoming negotiations on the EU Emissions Trading System and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism need to enable industry’s decarbonisation and make the green transition a true success story. EUROFER, which represents the EU steel industry providing 310,000 direct jobs and 2,2 million indirect jobs, calls upon the EU institutions to work for a balanced compromise in the final text. The Council, with the adoption of its position, made progress towards a smoother phase out of free allocations for industries in transition to carbon neutrality, but several issues still need to be fixed.
Brussels, 22 June 2022 – Despite some acknowledgment of industry’s challenges in addressing the green transition, the outcome of today’s plenary vote of the European Parliament will require further work in the next steps of the legislative process to align the provisions to the deployment of the EU steel industry’s ambitious low carbon projects. EUROFER reiterates its call to EU policy makers for an open, fact-based discussion, also in light of the evolving geopolitical and energetic context, in order to speed up decarbonisation and secure the EU’s strategic autonomy.
Brussels, 08 June 2022 – Today’s outcome of the European Parliament’s vote on the ETS and CBAM is very disappointing, as it delays a much-needed revision of the current proposals. The rejection of the report is neither good for the climate nor for industry’s green transition.
The European Steel Association (EUROFER)
172 Avenue de Cortenbergh
1000 Brussels
Belgium
Email: mail@eurofer.eu
Phone: +32 (0) 2 738 79 20
