cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10876353
The BRICS countries, including China, India, and Russia, have opposed the introduction of the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). They called it a punitive measure.
The comments come from the 12th BRICS Environment and Climate Ministers’ Meeting, held under India’s chairship in New Delhi.
BRICS includes the following countries: Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and the UAE. However, Saudi Arabia has not attended the meeting.
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“We oppose unilateral, punitive, discriminatory and protectionist measures that are not in line with international law, such as carbon border adjustment mechanisms (CBAM),” according to the joint statement of the ministers.
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CBAM entered into force on January 1. Since the beginning of this year, firms in the EU that import aluminium, cement, electricity, iron and steel, hydrogen and fertilisers from non-EU countries are obliged to pay a carbon price under CBAM.
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During the CBAM reporting phase, firms producing high-emission steel reduced their exports to the EU. At the same time, lower-emission businesses maintained their export volumes, according to the June 2026 analysis by Nature Climate Change.
The reporting phase started in October 2023 and ended in December 2025.
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The CBAM aims to protect European businesses against cheaper goods from economies outside the EU with lower environmental standards that lack carbon taxation.
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CBAM is a waste of time. It takes an inordinate amount of time to manage, and the exact data they want is often unobtainable. It simply puts the onus onto developing countries that the EU has benefitted from for many decades. It’s a regulatory cartel and slow surreptitious price fixing.
This isn’t true. The data is known. Countries like China can simply avoid the carbon tariffs by improving their environmental laws to the high EU standards, but Beijing has no interest. They just want to produce cheap and continue burning fossil fuels.
My job is import and exports of industrial machinery & spares and customs compliance, and I can tell you from experience that the data is not known in most instances. A piece of steel that came from raw material mined in one country, sold by an agent to another, formed and processed in another, and made into a final product in yet another, before being combined with some other parts with similarly contrived history will often have a poor paper trail or estimated figures the closer to source you go. It’s a tax the EU has made for not using their raw materials and products.
The CBAM is based on data, but it is clear that China has no interest in transparency. It is one of the major countries that oppose heavily transparent supply chains. That aside, the claim that ‘the data is not known’ or ‘can’t be collected’ is hilarious when it comes from governments like China that is fixated to collect its every citizen’s move 24/7.
It’s a tax the EU has made for high emissions or shit tracking of emissions. Both of those need to be put in order