Revision of the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM)

The EESC Youth Test was applied to this opinion. Youth and Environment Europe was chosen by a group of interested youth organisations to represent all of them during the opinion-making process.

Key points

The EESC:

• reaffirms its commitment to EU climate targets and its support for the emissions trading system (ETS) as a key tool for driving decarbonisation;

• emphasises that carbon leakage risks must be robustly addressed and the impacts of the CBAM, its ability to mitigate carbon leakage and the phase down of free allowances must be carefully monitored;

• reiterates its support for the extension of the scope of the CBAM to avoid shifting the risk of carbon leakage downstream in the value chain;

• calls for the Commission to redouble its focus on implementation and a limited transitionary period for the downstream extension should be considered;

• supports the anti-circumvention measures proposed by the Commission, and calls for the Commission and the Member States to act urgently to increase the availability of verifiers;

• notes that the newly proposed Article 27a, which allows the temporary exclusion of goods from the CBAM scope in serious and unforeseen circumstances, must be clearly defined to avoid market and investment uncertainty. In the event of the use of Article 27a, complementary measures to prevent carbon leakage and negative impacts on decarbonisation should be implemented;

• reiterates that the CBAM is a climate instrument with a primary purpose to contribute to global climate objectives in a cost‑efficient manner and underlines that the main objective of the CBAM should not be to maximise the collection of own resources for the EU;

• stresses the need for long‑term operational mechanisms to support Europe’s export‑oriented sectors following the phase‑out of free allocation under the EU ETS;

• recommends that the EU engage with trading partners, particularly developing countries to support their capacity to comply with the CBAM, secure reliable emissions data and adopt carbon pricing schemes.