Washington is looking into the possibility of introducing a carbon tax, which will introduce a fee on imports from countries that do not tax major polluters. John Kerry, the US climate envoy also cautioned that the introduction of this carbon tax could cause some risks downstream.

As instructed by President Joe Biden, the US officials are examining these risks by understanding the consequences of the carbon tax, drafting a suitable pricing structure of the carbon tax and the impact of the pricing.

The European Union, the world's largest single market also indicated that it will share its plans next month on the carbon border adjustment mechanism to encourage its trade partners to cut carbon emissions on the goods exported to the EU.

All though nothing is finalised yet, this proposal has drawn concern from several of EU’s trade partners especially from major emerging economies such as China, Brazil, India and South Africa.

As Washington and Brussels push for greater efforts to cut greenhouse gasses, both have agreed to consult each other on this issue. Kerry mentioned that they don't want this to have a negative impact and business should not get disadvantaged from the introduction of carbon taxes.

Kerry also added that before they jump into this, they fully want to understand the impact of introducing such a tax on businesses. He also stated that they would prefer if every country joined equitably to reduce emissions sufficiently so everyone is paying the price to avoid a global crisis.

During the Obama administration, Kerry was the secretary of state and had negotiated with China, resulting in the 2015 Paris climate accord. Currently, as Biden’s climate envoy, Kerry is again involved in several international diplomacies before the U.N. conference, which is to be held in Glasgow, Scotland.

Kerry in a recent visit to China had urged them to reduce the use of coal, limit funding for coal-fired power plants abroad as China’s efforts to reduce emissions would be a key contribution to the success of the UN Climate change conference.

Kerry has also been calling all major economies to donate to the $100 billion annual climate fund that was promised to poor countries by 2020. This remains short of reaching its target due to former US President, Donald Trump withholding the nation's contribution to the fund.

Kerry met with several German officials such as President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, and the other three leading contenders to succeed Angela Merkel as the chancellor in the national election and praised the current government’s newly raised climate targets to be “impressive.”

While many countries are making tougher cuts to their emissions, experts say that more needs to be done to achieve the Paris targets of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 F) by the end of the century compared to the pre-industrial times.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/europe-environment-and-nature-business-government-and-politics-6a020cd7bb93a639e7445cf4999276a2