Increasingly radical European carbon tax draft: shorten the transition period and expand the scope of collection. According to the agenda information published on the official website of the European Parliament, at the meeting of the Committee on environment, public health and food safety held on May 17, they adopted the draft report on the establishment of a carbon boundary adjustment mechanism. This draft has two main changes compared with the previous one: first, shorten the original three-year transition period to two years, and the start date of the bill transition period is January 1, 2023, The formal implementation date is January 1, 2025; Second, expand the scope of industries applicable to the bill, including new aluminum, hydrogen and chemicals, as well as indirect carbon emission industries represented by electricity. It should be noted that at present, the bill has only been passed by the environment, public health and food safety committee and needs to be voted at the plenary meeting from June 6 to 9 this year. Therefore, the above contents are still in the legislative process and have not been officially implemented.
It has a certain impact on China's exports of steel and aluminum, but has little impact on cement and chemical fertilizer. From the perspective of being included in the industry, it is mainly cement, steel, fertilizer, aluminum and other high energy consuming industries. From the perspective of the commodity structure of China's exports to the EU, the export proportion of steel and aluminum is relatively large compared with that of cement and fertilizer: the export data in April showed that China's steel / aluminum / cement / fertilizer (cumulative value, the same below) exported to the EU accounted for 3.45% / 1.19% / 0.08% / 0.02% of the total trade volume exported to the EU; The same is true from the proportion of EU exports of individual commodities in global exports: in April, the trade volume of China's steel / aluminum / cement / fertilizer exports to the EU accounted for 22.35% / 15.32% / 12.10% / 1.17% respectively. From the perspective of the proportion of overseas revenue of listed companies, the proportion of overseas revenue of steel / aluminum / cement / fertilizer (including phosphate fertilizer, nitrogen fertilizer, compound fertilizer and potassium fertilizer) is 4.95% / 10.21% / 1.18% / 12.19% respectively. If it is simply assumed that the proportion of goods exported by listed companies to the EU remains the same as the whole (specific stocks of course need specific analysis), Then the implementation of carbon tariff will affect the revenue ratio of listed companies by 1.11% / 1.56% / 0.14% / 0.14% respectively. Therefore, if carbon tariff is implemented in the future, it will probably have a greater impact on the export of steel and aluminum, but almost no impact on cement and chemical fertilizer.
Low carbon enterprises in relevant high energy consuming industries will have prominent competitive advantages in the future. If carbon tariffs are unilaterally implemented in international trade, it is actually trade protectionism, which is unfair to other countries that do not implement carbon tariffs. In the face of this situation, we think there may be two solutions in the future: first, if China can improve the carbon tax / carbon trading system and impose environmental taxes on export products in China, it is equivalent to leaving this tax in China rather than the EU, The premise of this path is that Europe recognizes the taxation of our export products (at present, the carbon price gap between China and the EU is too large, so it is difficult to achieve this); Second, Chinese enterprises carry out low-carbon technology transformation and upgrading, so as to reduce the tax base of carbon tax as much as possible. This path is actually to turn the carbon tax originally handed over to Europe into technology investment. However, no matter which path, for high energy consuming enterprises, their production costs will inevitably rise in the future. This means that: (1) the energy consuming industry may be further cleared; (2) Low carbon investment will bring new equipment and technology renewal needs. Take iron and steel as an example. At present, the proportion of blast furnace steelmaking in China is still large, because the gross profit of electric furnace steelmaking is indeed lower than that of blast furnace. However, if the environmental cost of blast furnace steelmaking rises significantly in the future, the gross profit gap between the two may narrow significantly, and the proportion of electric furnace steelmaking may rise, so as to eliminate some blast furnace capacity and increase the concentration of capacity. At the same time, electric furnace steelmaking will bring the demand for the renewal and transformation of graphite electrode and related equipment. Therefore, in the future, the competitive advantages of low-carbon enterprises in high energy consuming industries will be further highlighted, and some low-carbon material and technology equipment manufacturing enterprises will also benefit.
In the future, environmental costs will become a part of commodity prices. Theoretically, a better equilibrium is that the carbon tax levied by the government or the profits obtained by enterprises in carbon trading can be used to subsidize the additional costs paid by enterprises to reduce emissions, and the taxes and carbon prices will be partially transferred to the downstream, and the costs will ultimately be borne by the whole society. But it is unlikely to be realized in the short term: at present, China's carbon price is still very low, which means that the cost of environmental pollution is still very low compared with the cost of technological transformation; Under the condition of "ensuring supply and stable price", it is actually to prevent society from paying higher costs for the environment. Therefore, if we assume that China's carbon price can continue to converge towards the equilibrium point in the future, it actually means that in this process, the corresponding commodity price will also rise, and the carbon price will eventually become a part of the commodity price: simple calculation, if calculated according to the current EU carbon price standard (84.24 euros / ton on May 18, about 599 yuan / ton), Then the carbon emission cost of ton steel and ton aluminum (assuming all thermal power) is about 1200 yuan / 7517 yuan respectively.
Risk tip: the industries included in the carbon tax act exceed expectations; Carbon price exceeds expectations; Uncertainty of policy path.
