"I have carried the epidemic for 3 years, but I was stumped by the small 'carbon tax'......" At the two sessions of the National People's Congress this year, the emotion of a representative of the manufacturing people's congress triggered many netizens' follow-up.
The incident stemmed from an announcement on the website of the European Parliament. According to the announcement, under the EU's carbon border adjustment mechanism, the EU will impose taxes on goods such as steel, cement, aluminium and fertilizers imported from countries and regions with relatively loose carbon emission restrictions. From 2026, carbon tariffs will be formally imposed on related products imported into the EU.
The EU's carbon border adjustment mechanism is still a unilateral measure, but it has aroused great concern among developing countries. The Chinese government spoke out in a timely manner, emphasizing that global climate governance should fully respect the national conditions and capacity bases of different countries, and called for reaching a broad consensus on global carbon market cooperation through the negotiation of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, avoiding unilateral actions and reducing unnecessary negative spillover effects on countries outside the region.
Carbon tax is essentially a "green trade barrier", and it is also a complex system engineering to deal with it, which not only requires effective measures at the national level, such as maintaining close communication with the European Union, and actively striving for friendly trade cooperation space for domestic enterprises, but also requires the joint efforts of the majority of enterprises to use carbon tax to force themselves to adopt more environmentally friendly and efficient low-carbon technologies on the basis of improving carbon management capabilities, and continuously reduce carbon emission levels with the improvement of energy efficiency.
In the short term, the carbon tax will increase the production cost of enterprises and adversely affect the export competitiveness of China's products. Because of this, relevant export enterprises should establish and improve the carbon emission accounting system as soon as possible, and actively explore the management of corporate carbon assets on the basis of accurately measuring the amount of carbon emissions under the framework of laws and regulations, especially to be good at using digital means to complete sustainable carbon verification, and build the whole process supervision from raw materials to products through the tracking of carbon footprints, so as to ensure that carbon emission data is "measurable, verifiable and traceable".
In the long run, building a green supply chain is the fundamental way to reduce corporate carbon emissions. Studies by some institutions show that about ninety percent of carbon emissions come from raw materials, and reducing carbon emissions must start at the source. At present, some European companies have embedded carbon emission quantification requirements in their bidding rules. In this regard, it is not enough for enterprises to reduce carbon emissions alone, and it is necessary to improve the awareness and choice of green products by business entities, enhance the development, application and supply capacity of new green raw materials, strengthen the coordination and cooperation between upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain, and truly build a competitive green supply chain.
To cope with the carbon tax, it is necessary to accelerate the construction of a carbon management service system. Looking at the development trend of global carbon emission management policies, the supply chain system with carbon footprint as the core has begun to take shape, and it is expected that more industry enterprises will put forward carbon footprint management requirements in the future. This year's government work report proposes to improve the ability of carbon emission statistical accounting and verification, and establish a carbon footprint management system. The National Development and Reform Commission and other five departments also issued the "Opinions on Accelerating the Establishment of Product Carbon Footprint Management System" not long ago, from the carbon footprint accounting rules and standards, database construction, carbon labeling certification system, carbon footprint international convergence and mutual recognition, etc., the carbon footprint management work has been comprehensively deployed, and is expected to speed up the completion of the domestic carbon management service institutions are few, the international recognition is not high.
With the further deepening of global climate governance, more and more countries and regions may build new green trade barriers through carbon taxes and other measures in the future. In the face of new situations and new changes, China's enterprises must remain calm and rational, not only learn to observe the situation, but also improve the ability to control the situation, to be good at taking advantage of the trend, to seek long-term strategies, and to consolidate the foundation, will surely win more opportunities for development.