South African President Cyril Ramaphosa called for fairer global trade rules that support developing countries in their transition to low-carbon economies while protecting their growth, speaking at the Spain Business Forum in Madrid on Friday.
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Ramaphosa said emerging economies support climate action but warned that new regulations should not unfairly burden countries that contributed little to historical emissions.
“South Africa supports climate action. We are committed to the just transition towards a low-carbon economy,” he said. “But new regulatory frameworks, including the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, must not become instruments that inadvertently punish emerging economies for emissions they did not historically cause.”
The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism introduced by the European Union aims to prevent so-called carbon leakage by placing a carbon price on certain imported goods.
From January 2026, under the policy’s definitive phase, importers of carbon-intensive products such as steel, cement, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity and hydrogen will have to pay for the emissions associated with their production as part of the EU’s broader plan to reach climate neutrality by 2050.
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