European Union (EU) members agreed on Tuesday to place a tax on imported goods that will be higher or lower depending on the number of carbon emissions that were produced to manufacture them, according to The Wall Street Journal.
After months of negotiations, the EU parliament and member states agreed to impose a first-ever carbon tax on imports of iron, steel, cement, fertilizers, aluminum and electricity in order to encourage industries to cut carbon emissions, according to the WSJ. The law will come into effect in October 2023 and is expected to be expanded to tax other kinds of imported goods. (RELATED: Putin Threatens To Slash Oil Production, Starve European Countries Of Fuel)
“With this directive, the polluter is really going to pay, and we are pushing the rest of the world to do the same,” Mohammed Chahim, an EU lawmaker who led the negotiations, told the WSJ.
Under the new law, foreign businesses that bring in products into the EU will need to purchase certificates to cover the goods’ embedded CO2 emissions, according to the WSJ. The tax is intended to help EU industries by charging foreign companies for their carbon emissions since EU businesses are already required to buy carbon permits to offset their emissions.
The union’s poorer trading partners are upset by the deal as their businesses often produce substantial amounts of carbon dioxide, according to the WSJ. Additionally, it has unnerved American manufacturers who fear the measure will add to the sheer volume of regulations that they face when exporting their products to Europe.
(From L) European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, France’s President Emmanuel Macron, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Portugal’s Prime Minister Antonio Costa arrive for a joint press conference following their meeting to discuss H2Med underwater hydrogen pipeline initiative, on the sidelines of the EU-MED9 Euro-Mediterranean Group Summit on December 9, 2022 in Alicante. (Photo by LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images)
The EU will announce the new trade policy along with other climate laws within the next few weeks as the union continues to implement its aggressive climate agenda, the WSJ reported. The EU is also attempting to use the policy to incentivize its trading partners to reduce emissions or place a similar tax on carbon emissions, such as a cap-and-trade policy, which would set a limit on emissions and let companies buy and sell permits that allow them to emit a certain amount of greenhouse gases.
The European Commission did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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