[The Hwankyung Ilbo] The European Union announced on the 14th a package of implementation bills aimed at reducing 55 percent of carbon emissions by 2030. It's called a carbon border. Since 2023, items imported by the EU must be paid additional carbon prices equivalent to EU emission rights. Five items of steel, cement, aluminum, electricity, and fertilizer are the priority.

First of all, the steel industry is on alert. The Korea Institute of Foreign Economics predicted that the introduction of the EU carbon border tax will cost the domestic steel industry about 400 billion won in terms of exports last year, and that exports to the EU will decrease by 11.7 percent as price competitiveness decreases.

The introduction of a carbon border tax is not just a matter for the EU. The U.S. also recently included a "fee for imports from countries that cause pollution" in its eco-friendly budget worth about 4,000 trillion won. 

It is the so-called U.S. carbon border. According to the analysis of Greenpeace Korea and others, if the EU, the U.S., and China introduce carbon borders, the additional carbon borders that Korea will bear will reach up to 1.9 trillion won in 2030. 

Although the carbon border tax is criticized as a new kind of protective trade, it is considered the most effective way to achieve climate goals in that it raises climate goals and causes the spread of similar systems like dominoes.

This is because any country would choose to impose carbon prices on its own rather than paying other countries.

The most effective response to carbon borders is to impose the same or higher level of carbon prices as competitors and reinvest their costs in reducing capabilities.

Although the carbon border tax is applied to the carbon emission sector, such as steel, the private level of "RE100" is already out of step in the manufacturing industry as a whole. This is because global companies such as Apple, Google, and BMW are demanding that they join the RE100.

Sony, which supplies iPhone image sensors to Apple, has even demanded that the Japanese government "leave Japan unless renewable energy is dramatically increased in Japan."

How about Korean companies, which still account for nearly 40% of coal power generation? Samsung Electronics is one of the leading companies. Although overseas businesses have already declared RE100, they cannot do so even if they want to do so due to lack of renewable energy supply in Korea.

Meanwhile, Taiwan's TSMC, the biggest rival in the global foundry market, responded to Apple's request by joining RE100 for the first time among global semiconductor companies. 

Battery companies, which are the core of electric vehicles such as LG, are also hesitant to expand their factories in Korea due to their weak renewable energy base. Renewable energy power is now a weapon in itself that determines the competitiveness of a company.

The EU has declared a ban on the sale of all internal combustion engines, including hybrids, by 2035 and it is definitive to exclude LNG from the green category.

They say that technologies in the role of a bridge, such as LNG generation, can interfere with the full transition to the green economy, so they should run straight toward renewable energy and green hydrogen centered on wind and solar power.

The U.S. is also accelerating its transition by including the "Clean Energy Compulsory Use System," which converts 80% of electricity by 2030 and 100% of electricity to carbon-neutral power by 2035.

Since the commercialization of SMR, a next-generation nuclear power plant, is expected to be completed after 2030 at the earliest, renewable energy will be the means to achieve carbon-based energy in the power sector by 2035.

It is pointed out that Korea, which is highly dependent on trade, needs to take more extraordinary measures in preparation for a new trade order that will reverse the carbon border trend. Countries that quickly convert industries and energy based on renewable energy and green hydrogen are expected to take the lead in the trade war. The EU and the United States have already begun to run.  

"At this point, politics' responsibility is to seriously discuss ways to expand renewable energy to protect our jobs and industrial competitiveness," said Rep. Kim Sung-hwan of the Democratic Party of Korea.

"To be exact, the nuclear disarmament policy is a six decades-long phased nuclear disarmament policy," he added. "We hope that there will no longer be a consumptive debate that weakens the nation's industrial competitiveness due to the 'de-nuclear power plant' dispute at a time when the de-carbon energy exchange is urgent," he added.