Sam Hall, the director of the Conservative Environment Network, urged Hunt to bring in a CBAM that would focus first on energy-intensive businesses that have big carbon footprints and are especially liable to being undercut by imports. This could include steel, chemicals and other heavy industry.
He also called for exemptions for imports from the poorer developing countries, to ensure their goods were not penalised unfairly. “There remains an active debate around the design of CBAMs,” he said. “[But] good design can deal with many of the potential objections.”