Abstract In the last two decades, rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have driven into global warming. Efforts like expanding renewable energy, produce an increased metal demand, especially copper, which also emits GHGs. Trying to mitigate this, the European Union established the Emissions Trading System (EU-ETS) to regulate and price industrial GHG emissions. This study quantifies the GHG emissions associated with copper production and examines the impact of the EU-ETS and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) on copper costs across different temporal and geographical scenarios, concretely across the supply chain of four different countries. A Life Cycle Carbon Footprint assessment was conducted using the Environmentally Extended Multi-Regional Input-Output Analysis with the EXIOBASE database. A sensitivity analysis was also conducted. The results showed that Poland, despite having the lowest emissions, was the most penalized under the EU-ETS, while China, with one of the highest GHG emissions, faced minimal costs. This discrepancy arises as cost from the EU-ETS are based on an allocation principle, which benefits non-EU countries and EU countries that primarily import copper. The study suggests that incorporating copper into the CBAM could help balance emissions and costs by accounting for the GHG emissions of imported products. The sensitivity analysis revealed that countries with higher import levels, such as Spain and Germany, have less control over GHG emission costs by altering their electricity mix. This emphasises the need for coordinated global targets to effectively mitigate emissions.
Martínez-Hernando et al. (Wed,) studied this question.