The Carbon Border Adjustments unjustly discriminates against developing nations as a form of Western economic imperialism.

Although reasonable at face value, unilateral carbon border adjustments merely represent the latest form of economic imperialism and are antithetical to the principles of equity enshrined in the Paris Agreement (pdf). Article 2 clearly states that the agreement “will be implemented to reflect equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.” Without buy-in from countries like India and China, carbon border adjustments risk becoming a climate-based sanctions regime.

A short history lesson can be helpful. That China, India, and other developing countries rely on fossil fuels to power their economies is not an accident. These growth models are a consequence of post–World War global dominance by the West in economic, political, and financial spheres.

Until very recently, international organizations like the World Bank Group (pdf) provided financing to expand fossil-fuel infrastructure, including coal-fired power plants, in developing countries. In those countries even today, extractive industries such as mining and oil and gas are more often than not led by multinational corporations based in the West, with the active support of Western governments. These investments lock developing countries on a trajectory of emissions-intensive development for decades to come.

To actively promote such fossil-fuel development and then punish developing countries for emissions through carbon border adjustments is, at best, hypocritical. It’s also unjust. After all, these same forces of globalization helped the developed world shift manufacturing and outsource its associated pollution burdens to China and other developing countries.

The decision to impose such taxes on developing countries reflects the colonial practice of wealth transfer from the developing to the developed world. Without due consideration to historical harms, carbon border adjustments perpetuate a cycle in which the developing world suffers for the actions of the developed one.

In the US, which is in the process of withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, protectionist trade policies such as carbon border adjustments often find bipartisan favor. But the same policymakers who would recognize the inequity of imposing carbon taxes on low-income Americans fail to see the injustice of penalizing developing countries for their emissions.