Rapporteur for the draft opinion of the Committee on International Trade (INTA) on the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), Karin Karlsbro (Renew Europe, Sweden) will see her text debated in parliamentary committee on 25 January.
In her draft opinion, she proposes that the financial resources derived from CBAM certificates be used to cover the costs of administering the CBAM and then to combat climate change in least developed countries.
On this point, she thus agrees with the proposal for a report made by Mohammed Chahim (S&D, the Netherlands) (see EUROPE 12862/3). The European Commission was only planning to cover the costs of the CBAM and then allocate the remaining revenues to the EU budget.
Scope
However, she agrees with the European Commission’s proposal concerning the sectors covered by the mechanism.
Mr Chahim proposed extending this to include organic compounds, hydrogen, and polymers (a class of substances composed of macromolecules). These would be added to the cement, electricity, steel and iron, aluminium, and fertiliser sectors.
In the Committee on Agriculture, the rapporteur for the opinion, Zbigniew Kuźmiuk, proposed that imported agricultural products be included in the scope of the CBAM for the time being (see EUROPE 12829/14).
Mrs Karlsbro also believes that, technically, it would be too difficult to include indirect emissions from the production of these products once the CBAM comes into force. Like the European Commission, she suggests having a transitional period first.
Nevertheless, she agrees with her S&D colleague on the date on which the mechanism should fully enter into force and suggests setting it as early as 2025 instead of 2026.
Free quotas
Mrs Karlsbro does not elaborate on the phasing out of free allocations of allowances under the Emissions Trading System (ETS), considering that this issue must be addressed through the ETS Regulation (see EUROPE 12867/3). She agrees with the European Commission on its time frame for phasing out these allocations between 2026 and 2036.
Operation
In her draft opinion, Karin Karlsbro calls for the European Commission to set up an online information portal by 1 January 2024 to assist businesses.
She also supports the European Commission with regard to the management of CBAM certificates and considers that authorities in each Member State will be responsible for this.
See the draft opinion: https://bit.ly/3nKEl0q (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)