The European Union will not exempt Britain from its CO2 emissions fee on imported goods, including steel and ​cement, until the two sides link their carbon markets, the bloc’s climate chief ‌said. Yahoo Finance has the story.

British industries had hoped to get a temporary exemption from the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) while the carbon market ‌linkage negotiations were underway.

The UK government has said the EU levy would cost its industry 800 million pounds a year.

EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said on Wednesday that Britain would not be exempted from the carbon border levy until its carbon market was linked to the EU’s.

“We’re not exempting anyone, ⁠but the moment we will be ‌fully linking those two, it is likely that there will be an exemption at that point in time,” he said.

Hoekstra said Brussels was aware ‍the British government “would have … liked a different order to this whole set of events”.

“But that is something unfortunately we cannot change,” Hoekstra said, adding that the EU would work constructively with Britain to link the carbon ​markets.

There looked, however, to be some respite for British electricity exports to ‌Europe – which, alongside steel, cement, fertilisers, aluminium and hydrogen, will be covered by the EU carbon border levy.

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