Consideration on Border Carbon Adjustment (presentation)

下手な英語で恐縮ながら、今日のGlobal Tradeの授業で使ったプレゼン資料を転載。中身は、いま書いているpaperと同じ（ただし一部省略）。

• House passed H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACESA, or "Waxman-Markey" Act) in June 2009.
• The center peace of ACESA is “Cap-and-Trade”.
• If you want to make greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, you have to buy allowances in gov’t-hosted auctions or carbon market.
• Big concern over “competitiveness” and “carbon leakage”. ⇒ BCA is necessary!!
• “Competitiveness”: the firm’s ability to maintain and/or expand market position based on its cost structure.
• “Carbon leakage”: the transfer of emissions-intensive manufacturing to jurisdictions with lesser emissions restrictions
• Heavy political pressure mainly from energy-intensive & trade-exposed industries: such as steel and cement.
• Border Carbon Adjustment (BCA) in ACESA
• “Two-phased” system
• Phase 1: Emission Allowance Rebate Program (EARP)
• A type of home rebates.
• Domestic industrial sectors “shown to be vulnerable to carbon leakage” would be eligible for free allowances allocation.
• The amount of allocated allowances is planned to be decreased gradually after 2026 until achieving null in 2034.
• Phase 2: International Reserve Allowance Program (IRAP)
• A type of border taxation on imports from a country which has no or only insufficient climate policy.
• Importers of eligible sectors would be imposed on a requirement to submit emissions allowances according to their carbon intensity.
• This program may be implemented as of 2020, if a multilateral climate agreement is not in force by 2018.
• Legality Question on EARP
• EARP could constitute actionable subsidies covered by Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM).
• Even if found to be “actionable”, “adverse effects” have to be demonstrated for action to be taken by another WTO member.
• Legality Question on IRAP
• There are three possible explanations of its legality:
• 1) IRAP is a border tax adjustment.
• Article II.2 of GATT allows WTO members “imposing at any time on the importation of any product … a charge equivalent to an internal tax … in respect of an article from which the imported product has been manufactured or produced in whole or in part”
• The key questions are:
• i. whether the energy inputs and fossil fuel used in the production of a particular product could be considered to be “an article from which the imported product has been manufactured or produced in whole or in part”; and
• ii. whether a tax on CO2 emissions released during the production process will be considered to be a tax applied indirectly products.
• 2) Domestic and foreign goods are not “like” products.
• If a domestic product and an imported product are found to be “unlike”, they don’t have to be treated in a non-discriminative way.
• The key question is whether products may be considered “unlike” because of differences in the way in which they have been produced, even through the production method does not leave a trace in the final product.
• 3) IRAP can be justified by Article XX on General Exemptions.
• The key questions is whether IRAP may be thought to fall within one of, or both of, the following exceptions:
• (b) necessary to protect human, animal or plant life or health;
• (g) relating to the conservation of exhaustible natural resources if such measures are made effective in conjunction with restrictions on domestic production or consumption.
• India etc versus US: ‘Shrimp-Turtle’ case
• India, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Thailand brought action in 1996 in the WTO against an U.S. law that restricted imports of shrimp not caught in nets equipped with turtle excluder devices.
• The four governments challenged this measure, asserting that the U.S. could not apply its laws to foreign process and production methods (PPMs).
• The WTO Appellate Body’s findings:
• Non-product related PPMs can be justified under Article XX.
• There is a “sufficient nexus” between the U.S. and the endangered sea turtles.
• These findings suggest IRAP would also fall under Article XX (g).
• “Common but differentiated responsibility” principle of UNFCCC
• Even if EAPR and IRAP are WTO-compatible, they also have to be consistent with “common but differentiated responsibility” (CBDR) principle of U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
• That means measures which require every country including LDCs to take the same level climate policy with U.S. would be UNFCCC-incompatible.
• Even if EAPR and IRAP have legality …
• They have enforcement issue:
• EAPR: how to calculate average carbon intensity (t-CO2e/product unit) of each sector, while the same sector can produce different kinds of products?
• IRAP: how to calculate foreign industries’ carbon intensities? (more difficult, technically and politically)
• IRAP would have only limited effect.(see Annex.)
• Still, it could be a big step for …
• Making U.S. climate act to be real, by attracting domestic industries’ compromise
• Breaking the deadlock in international climate talks, by making a bilateral-climate-agreement option more realistic.

Waxman-Markey法案のBorder Adjustmentの部分、おそらくは、RFFかEDFかNRDCあたりが書いたんじゃないかと思われるが（単なる邪推。根拠なし）、非常によく練られているなというのが僕の印象。しばしば、「『環境』の衣を被った保護主義ではないのか」といった批判が聞かれるが、実際には、相当限られたシチュエーションでしかimporters allowanve requirementが発動されないよう、「安全装置」が二重、三重に仕掛けられている。その分、「国内産業保護」の効果は限定的にならざるを得ず、どれほど大きな効果が得られるのか疑問。この規定（特にIRAP）、実は最初から、実質的に運用しようという気はあまりなく、むしろ、国内の産業界をなだめたり、新興国に圧力をかけたりするための“ブラフ”として使うだけのつもりで盛り込まれたんじゃないかとすら勘繰ってみたり。

ともあれ、環境行政と貿易の両方の分野に長じた実務家がいないと、これだけの法文は準備できないはず。アメリカという国のこの辺りの層の厚さには感服せざるを得ない。日本に、それだけの人的リソースがあるかどうか、果たして…。

今学期のクラスは今日ですべて終了。インターンも明日が最終日で、DCでの生活も残り一週間である。

my room, Washington DC, Dec 17, 22:40