Europe’s new tax on high-carbon imports is bad news for China

Last month, European lawmakers set the bloc’s climate goals in stone, legally committing to reduce net greenhouse emissions 55% below 1990 levels by 2030, and to reach net zero by 2050. Now they’re about to tackle the hard part: Agreeing on how to actually do that.

On July 14, the European Commission introduced a set of 12 proposals—that it’s calling “Fit for 55″—that legislators will debate and possibly approve over the next two years. They range from a total phaseout of gas-fueled cars, to tighter caps on emissions from power plants, vehicles, and farms, to new support for low-carbon aviation fuels, to a carbon tax on certain imports, to new measures to increase carbon uptake by forests. Overall, the package constitutes the world’s most detailed and ambitious set of climate change policies.

Overall, EU emissions are already declining, but far from fast enough, and emissions from transportation are still on the rise. Because the goal applies to the bloc as a whole, lawmakers will need to navigate a familiar but thorny divide between wealthier nations that are keen to plow full-steam ahead on climate action, and poorer ones that still rely heavily on fossil fuels. And they’ll need to decide how much support to channel to the former European colonies in Africa and elsewhere that are the most vulnerable to climate impacts.

Read the rest of this story on qz.com. Become a member to get unlimited access to Quartz’s journalism.