How the EU’S Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism Challenges the Dominant Climate Paradigm

This article examines how the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) has shaped climate policy, making the EU the first jurisdiction in the world to introduce a carbon price outside of its borders. The policy shift linked with the introduction of CBAM is compared with established environmental paradigms: prometheanism/growth unlimited (PGU), ecological modernization (EM) and sufficiency. A benchmark for assessing to which environmental paradigm CBAM belongs is developed and a qualitative content analysis of both secondary and primary sources is complemented with a quantitative content analysis of the documents stemming from the EU institutions during the legislative process. It is concluded that the dominant EM paradigm is challenged by the sufficiency paradigm with CBAM, and that there is a need for more research on CBAM and its effect on climate paradigms as this instrument develops in the coming years.