Bellona Europa welcomes the publication of the legislative proposal amending the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), and the related secondary legislation last December. Bellona positively assesses the criteria guiding the extension of CBAM’s scope to downstream goods and the proposed anti-circumvention measures. We strongly recommend that the co-legislators do not deviate from the European Commission’s overall approach.

Bellona Europa has long supported the establishment of CBAM as a key instrument to strengthen the EU carbon price signal while protecting European producers from the risk of carbon leakage arising from uneven climate ambition globally. In line with this objective, Bellona advocates for a CBAM that effectively creates incentives for emissions reductions by operators in third countries, as explicitly stated in Article 1 of the CBAM Regulation.

While overall, the legislative proposal goes in the right direction, it also contains elements that, if not carefully addressed, could risk undermining CBAM’s climate integrity. According to the new framework that resulted from the December publications, Bellona calls on the co-legislators not to weaken the proposal during the legislative process while strengthening those provisions that may compromise CBAM’s climate credibility.

Read more in our recent position paper.