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• EUROPEAN UNION
• AFRICA

Calls for an African counterstrike on carbon levies

The UN Economic Commission for Africa advises governments to draft carbon tariffs as part of a broader trade and industrial response

Amid complaints that the continent’s industrialisation could be undermined by being excluded from the ‘design process’ of the European Union’s carbon regime, Hanan Morsi of the UN’s Economic Commission for Africa says that African countries should introduce their own version of the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. ‘Part of our concern is that we were not consulted, engaged, or given a say on implementation,’ said Morsi at the annual meeting of the African Development Bank on 28 May.

She added that African governments should consider introducing their own carbon-related taxes directly on producers. The EU levy, which came into force in December, requires importers to pay a carbon price equivalent to that paid by European producers under the EU Emissions Trading System.

Morsi repeated arguments made by South Africa and India last year that CBAM is being used as a trade protection mechanism by the EU (Dispatches 1/9/25, Pretoria demands equal treatment to US on EU carbon border tax). European Commission officials insist that CBAM is part of its ‘green deal’ to reach ‘net zero’ carbon emissions (AC Vol 64 No 13, How Brussels's green tax will hit Africa).

‘What is taking shape now is not just an environmental tool: climate regulation is increasingly turning into trade regulation, industrial policy, and competitiveness policy, and this has profound implications for Africa,’ said Morsi.

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