Carbon tariffs and the EU’s steel industry


Fuel for a dirty war

THE European Union wants to slash greenhouse-gas emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. It is on course to cut just half that amount. To get back on track, on February 15th, the European Parliament voted for a plan to raise the cost for firms to produce carbon. It has prompted growing calls for the bloc to tax the carbon emissions embodied in the EU’s imports. At best, such a levy will barely curb emissions. At worst, it could cause a trade war.

The EU’s latest reforms try to put up the price of carbon by cutting the emissions allowances firms are granted. They include the EU’s first border tax on carbon, levied on cement imports. Steel firms, also heavy users of carbon, say their exclusion from this scheme is unfair. This week Lakshmi Mittal, the CEO of ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steelmaker, offered his support for the tax. Similar proposals in America are also gaining support. This month a group including two Republican former treasury secretaries, James Baker and George Shultz, proposed a similar carbon tax on all imports at the border.

Boosters say such proposals remove…

The Economist: Finance and economics

Post Author: martin

Martin is an enthusiastic programmer, a webdeveloper and a young entrepreneur. He is intereted into computers for a long time. In the age of 10 he has programmed his first website and since then he has been working on web technologies until now. He is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of BriefNews.eu and PCHealthBoost.info Online Magazines. His colleagues appreciate him as a passionate workhorse, a fan of new technologies, an eternal optimist and a dreamer, but especially the soul of the team for whom he can do anything in the world.

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