Merkel's CDU examines border adjustment measures to avoid carbon leakage
Clean Energy Wire
Germany's ruling Christian Democrats (CDU) want to examine “border adjustment measures” to avoid carbon leakage in case a global price on CO2 emissions cannot be agreed on quickly, the party leadership said in a resolution for its national conference on 22-23 November in Leipzig. The CDU stopped short of explicitly calling for a carbon border tax, which European Commission President-elect Ursula von der Leyen has said she plans to introduce. France has long called for such a tax and the French and German governments announced they support looking into it after joint consultations in September. A spokesperson this week said that before the German government would decide a position on such a tax “various questions of climate policy, trade policy, commercial law [and] practicability” have to be addressed.
A carbon border tax is not mentioned in the climate action package approved by the federal government on 20 September. Chancellor Angela Merkel's so-called climate cabinet presented key points of a plan to reach 2030 climate targets, which include a pricing system for carbon emissions in transport and buildings, passage of a Climate Action Law and a package of measures in all sectors.
