Six months ago, most experts assumed that the introduction of the EU border carbon tax (fee) is a relatively distant future, and the Russian enterprises—exporters of carbon-intensive products have ample time to prepare for this: calculate your carbon footprint, to develop and adopt a corporate strategy of low-carbon development, to establish targets for emission reduction, etc. With the spread of the pandemic, the situation has changed significantly, and not for the better for our companies direction. COVID-19 was in fact a powerful catalyst for the implementation by Europe of the decisions taken on the economy’s transition to a low-carbon footing. Today, the EU is considering a “green course” not as one of the priority directions of development, as the key output of the economic crisis caused by the pandemic, therefore with a very high degree of probability it can be stated that not in the distant future, and in two, maximum three years will create the world’s first precedent of implementation of measures of carbon protectionism.Of course, you can argue about the extent to which these measures are consistent or inconsistent with WTO rules, as well as about what in this decision, the EU is more economic pragmatism, as expressed in the lobbying of domestic producers with the possibilities of replenishment of the budget at the expense of foreign industrial companies that do not meet carbon requirements of the EU, or the real concerns of a possible rise in global emissions due to leakage vysokointensivnykh production from the EU to countries with insufficient, according to EU climate regulation.Border tax makes us a whole lot of questions — as in the form of the introduction, and the details related to the implementation of this mechanism. But today it is absolutely obvious one: the price of carbon has become a key instrument of national economic and environmental policies and voluntary initiatives by trade restrictions at present turns into an instrument of coercion. In other words, those who do not pay for greenhouse gas emissions at the national level in the framework of its national legislation, will be required to pay in trade relations with other countries and companies in other national jurisdictions and systems, establish a fee for carbon emissions. According to the latest data from the World Bank (may 2020), there are already 46 such systems on national and 36 at the subnational level.In this situation, in fact, the only mechanism of protection of Russian producers from border carbon tax should become a law definitely fixing a set of national policy measures to reduce emissions and spreading��complementary to the principle of “polluter pays” for greenhouse gases. Only one thing you need to keep in mind: the time limit for its completion and acceptance after three years of “swing” today is almost exhausted.
