Major steel companies made millions from the climate crisis

The reductions in emissions by companies associated with the EU's quota trading system have been quite impressive, but recent progress has been made mainly in the energy sector. This makes the bloc's goal of achieving climate neutrality by 2050 - something that ThyssenKrupp and others have joined - more difficult. With the exception of power plants, the largest single sources of carbon pollution in Europe are smelters.

To be fair, sectors such as steel lack technologies to reduce carbon emissions. Technologies such as replacing coal with hydrogen in steelmaking are promising, but most are still being tested. Making them commercially viable will require a higher carbon price and huge investments, including huge new sources of renewable electricity.

However, free carbon credits for steel companies probably didn't motivate them enough to find more sustainable production methods. In her determination to redouble EU efforts to reduce pollution, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has come up with the idea of ​​introducing a carbon border import tax into the bloc to make sure domestic producers are not unjustly punished.

The possibility of such a tax is unproven: measuring the carbon content of a finished product is difficult and the tax must reflect fluctuations in the price of allowances. Even if it complies with World Trade Organization rules, the carbon tax could cause trade tensions with the United States.

Naturally, steelmakers think a border tax is a great idea, as it would expose them to less competition by rejecting dirty imports. Surprisingly, they are lobbying to maintain their free pollution quotas even as non-EU steel producers are forced to pay the price of carbon in the bloc. The local industry claims that its exports from non-EU countries will become uncompetitive if it has to pay the full cost of permits when investing in innovation to reduce emissions. His lobbying sounds dangerous, like an industry trying to get its cake and eat it.

The data shows that ArcelorMittal and Tata Steel receive quotas that exceed their emissions. However, some of them have to be turned over to the energy sector to account for the waste gases they process.