The European Union just unveiled its plan to impose border taxes on greenhouse gas polluters as part of its effort to become carbon neutral by 2050. In doing so it will become the first major economic bloc to try to enforce good climate behavior, not just on its own industries, but also on those that would sell to the EU.
The bloc does deserve credit for doing a better job at confronting the climate challenge than the U.S. or any other large economic bloc has. The need for action is hair-on-fire obvious. Unfortunately, the EU’s action won’t work.
More than three decades of local and regional initiatives have shown that a piecemeal approach can’t solve a global problem. Concerns are well documented. The EU itself has objected to another recent example of this fragmented approach, accusing the U.S. of unfair subsidies because of elements of the $370-billion climate plan in the Inflation Reduction Act. The U.S. trade representative, Katherine Tai, has also already expressed concern about how the EU’s border tax would affect trade with U.S. manufacturers.
