{"id":48637,"date":"2023-07-03T15:57:11","date_gmt":"2023-07-03T14:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/?p=48637"},"modified":"2023-07-05T09:15:54","modified_gmt":"2023-07-05T08:15:54","slug":"mozambique-aluminium-cbam-carbon-border-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2023\/07\/03\/mozambique-aluminium-cbam-carbon-border-tax\/","title":{"rendered":"Threat of EU carbon tax prompts dubious “green aluminium” claims in Mozambique"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the face of new carbon taxes on exports to the European Union (EU), Mozambique’s biggest industrial employer is making big claims about its hydro-powered “green aluminium”.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But researchers doubt how green Mozambique’s aluminium really is and whether it will be able to stay green. If it can’t, analysts told Climate Home, the EU’s carbon border tax could have catastrophic ripple effects through one of the world’s poorest economies.<\/p>\n

For years, policymakers in the European Union have worried that their heavy industries would flee abroad to escape taxes on carbon.<\/p>\n

To try and avoid this, in 2021, the EU approved<\/a> a tax on the carbon emissions that come from imports \u2014 called a carbon border adjustment mechanism.<\/p>\n

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Although emerging economies like China shared “grave concern”<\/a> about “trade barriers”, the EU claimed it was just a way of ensuring that the carbon emissions of products that end up in the EU are taxed the same whether they’re made in the EU or not.<\/p>\n

The tax will come into force in 2026 and apply to particularly polluting products like electricity, fertilisers, cement, iron, steel and aluminium.<\/p>\n

Green aluminium?<\/b><\/h3>\n

The aluminium sector is Mozambique’s biggest industry and the its largest industrial employer, a source of income to nearly 3,000 people and an indirect boost to many more. <\/span>But as EU rules approach the sector, some companies have rushed to green claims.<\/span><\/p>\n

One strategic asset is a large smelting facility on the outskirts of the country’s capital Maputo, where the aluminium is processed. The smelter is owned by a company called Mozal, which is now owned by Australia’s South32, a company that spun out of BHP Biliton in 2015.<\/p>\n

South32’s CEO Graham Kerr told the Melbourne Mining Club recently that European carmakers are choosing to pay more for Mozal’s aluminium because it is produced with hydropower electricity not the fossil fuels of some of its rivals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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A view of Cahora Bassa dam in 2010 (Reuters\/Goran Tomasevic)<\/p><\/div>\n

Nearly two-thirds of the emissions of the product’s emissions are from the smelting, where alumiumium is extracted from alumina at a very high heat. Producing that heat requires a lot of electricity.<\/p>\n

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According to a 2022 Mozal report<\/a>, “electricity supplied to Mozal Aluminium is generated by Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa (HCB), a hydro-electric power generator situated on the Zambezi River”.<\/span><\/p>\n

But, it adds, “the electricity is supplied via Eskom’s South African grid” through the cables of Motraco, a joint venture between the utilities of South Africa, Mozambique And Eswatini.<\/p>\n

HCB is in the north-west of Mozambique while Mozal’s smelter is in the far south, near the South African border.<\/p>\n