Europe's Days of Carbon Colonialism are Numbered

The EU's grandiloquent carbon tariffs scheme is destined to collapse under the weight of the bloc's utter economic irrelevance

The European Union is intent on implementing the world’s first tax on the carbon content of imported goods from January 1st 2026. The EU's celebrated climate policy experiment, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), will make its debut as the crowning jewel of its Green New Deal to make Europe “climate neutral by 2050”.

Brussels imagines itself as the arbiter of the world’s energy future, wielding carbon tariffs to discipline trading partners into compliance. Yet as 2026 approaches, it is increasingly clear that this grandiose project is destined to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions, geopolitical realities and economic irrelevance.