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Paper short abstract

Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms reshape African development pathways. Using World Development Indicators, this study explains cross-country variation in carbon-border trade vulnerability by energy intensity, manufacturing reliance, export concentration, income levels, and state capacity.

Paper long abstract

Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms (CBAM) are reconfiguring global trade and climate governance, with disproportionate implications for African economies embedded in carbon-intensive and undiversified export structures. While CBAM is framed as a climate fairness instrument, its developmental effects depend on structural conditions that shape countries’ exposure and adjustment capacity. This study examines CBAM from a geopolitics and development perspective, focusing on African economies as representative of tropical, late-industrialising contexts.

Using exclusively open-access data from the World Development Indicators (WDI), the paper explains cross-country variation in carbon-border trade vulnerability, defined as dependence on emissions-intensive manufacturing and trade exposure relative to development capacity. The explanatory framework combines five core dimensions: energy intensity, manufacturing dependence, export concentration, income level, and state capacity. These indicators capture historically rooted development pathways rather than firm-level inefficiencies.

Situating the analysis within international political economy, the paper argues that CBAM acts as an external constraint on policy space, redistributing adjustment costs toward African economies with limited fiscal, technological, and institutional buffers. The findings highlight how carbon borders risk reinforcing structural asymmetries in global trade unless accompanied by compensatory finance, technology transfer, and data infrastructure support. By grounding the analysis in widely used development indicators, the study provides a transparent and scalable framework for assessing the justice implications of global carbon governance for Africa’s low-carbon transition.