How Europe is Building a Carbon Currency
EU to extend carbon border levy to car parts, refrigerators, and washing machines.
That was today’s Reuters headline1. It may sound like boring bureaucratic noise, but it really isn’t. It is the final piece of a puzzle that has been coming together for three years. We usually hear about these things separately: a new ‘Digital Euro’, a new ‘Digital ID’, or a new ‘Carbon Tax’.
But when you look at the timeline, you realise they aren’t separate. They are gears in a single machine.
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Right now, if you have the money to buy something, you can buy it. Your bank checks your financial balance, and that’s it. But by 2029, that changes2. The infrastructure is being built to check a second balance: your carbon balance.
Today’s news confirms that the system is expanding from taxing raw steel to taxing the things you actually buy — fridges, cars, and washing machines. The system will soon know exactly how much carbon is in your shopping cart, and for the first time, it will have the power to say ‘no’ at the checkout.
Here is how it works.
The Three Parts of the Trap
The Scorecard: Digital Product Passports How does a checkout terminal know how much carbon is in a washing machine? Enter the Digital Product Passport3. Think of this as a digital birth certificate for objects. It will appear as a QR code on the box or a tiny chip inside the product. Scan it, and it reveals everything about the item — including exactly how much CO₂ was emitted to make it.
This is already law. Battery Passports4 become mandatory in 2027.
The ID: Your Digital Wallet To make this system work, the network needs to know who is buying the product. By 2026, every EU country must offer a Digital Identity Wallet5. By 2027, banks and large platforms must accept it. This isn’t just a digital driver’s license; it’s a container for your personal data ‘attributes’ — like your age, your address, or eventually, your carbon allowance.
The Enforcer: The Digital Euro (CBDC) Most people think they already use ‘digital money’ when they tap their Visa card. But that money is just a digital IOU from a private bank. A Central Bank Digital Currency6 (CBDC) is different. It is issued directly by the European Central Bank. And unlike the money in your bank account today, this new money is designed to support ‘conditional payments’.
It is money that can check if you obeyed the rules before the transaction goes through.
How It Works in Real Life
Central banks have already successfully tested this technology (see Project Rosalind7). They call it a ‘Three-Party Lock’.
It functions like a digital turnstile. To open it, three keys must turn at the same time:
Identity: Who are you? (Checked by your Digital Wallet)
Asset: What are you buying? (Checked by the QR code on the product)
Permission: Do you have the allowance? (Checked by the system)
Here is what a shopping trip could look like in 2029:
Scenario A: The Washing Machine You tap your phone to buy a new washer. The terminal scans the Product Passport and sees it contains 142 kg of embedded CO₂ (roughly the same emissions as driving 350 miles). Your digital wallet checks your monthly carbon budget. You are over your limit.
The Result: The payment fails, or a popup asks if you want to pay a ‘Carbon Surcharge’ of €50 to authorise the transaction.
Scenario B: The Flight You try to book a holiday flight. The airline’s system pings your wallet. It sees you’ve already taken two flights this year.
The Result: The ‘Standard’ fare is grayed out. You can only purchase the ‘High-Emitter’ fare, which costs double.
‘But They Promised It Wouldn’t Be Programmable’
You might hear officials say the Digital Euro ‘won’t be programmable money’8. This is a clever word game.
Technically, they are telling the truth: the currency itself won’t have an expiration date stamped on it. But the wallet you use to hold it will have all these rules built in. The outcome is exactly the same: if you don’t meet the conditions, the money doesn’t move.
It Starts With Rewards, Not Bans
Don’t expect this to start with ‘transaction denied’. That makes people pay attention.
It will likely start with rewards. ‘Use your Digital ID to get 5% off this green product!’ or ‘Get a lower interest rate on your car loan if you buy an EV!’
It will be framed as a voluntary game to save the planet (and money). But once everyone is using the system, flipping the switch from ‘rewarding good behavior’ to ‘punishing bad behavior’ is just a settings change. No new laws are needed — just a software update.
The End of Cash
‘I’ll just use cash’, you say.
For now, you can. But cash is dying. In Sweden, less than 10% of payments are cash9. In the EU, new laws cap cash payments to businesses at €10,000, and any cash purchase over €3,000 triggers an ID check10.
As cash becomes inconvenient or suspicious, the digital path becomes the only path. And on that path, the turnstile is waiting.
The Timeline
2026: Carbon taxes (CBAM) hit importers. Prices go up.
2027: Digital ID becomes standard for banking. The first ‘Product Passports’ (for batteries) become law.
2028: The list of tracked products expands to packaging and plastics.
2029: The Digital Euro launches. The machine is turned on.
The rails are being laid right now in the EU. If you want to understand where this train is going, don’t listen to the speeches. Look at the tracks.
I’ve been warning of a control system which acts exactly like this, though narrowly, since late 2020. I had certainly thought of it by summer 2020. No explanation fitted so well what I could see, other than ultra control at the level of the individual.
The factor I could hear about from around then was “vaccination”, the relevant record being Vaccine Passports or VaxPass. Blair & others were banging on about this already.
The way it would operate, in my imagination, was that you’d present your ID & payment method. If the authorities had set the requirement that you must have been injected, there’d be an editable field for Y or N. Unless yours said Y, you weren’t permitted to buy the item or cross the regulated threshold.
I knew Blair was lying, because what he said was truly irrational:
If you were not concerned about this nominal public health risk, then you would have no interest in whether a person near you was injected or not.
If you were concerned, you’d have been injected & of course, then you would have no interest in whether a person near you was injected or not.
Formally, by early December 2020, it was clear to me that the injections were designed to cause toxicity at some level. Couple this property with the above control system and you’ve two paths to suffering.
If you complied, you might be able to buy things & move around. But I envisaged that the tyrants would require that you be repeatedly injected with toxins, whose toxicity the tyrants could vary. Comply and be injured and then killed.
Alternatively, you could decline, but you won’t be able to do much. You might even starve, in the most extreme form of the control system.
In the author here’s evaluation, carbon (dioxide) would regulate what you could do. There’s no chance that the tyrants would let this play out like this. You might not suffer & die and that won’t do at all. For avoidance of doubt, I think we’re both correct. The carbon budget is a distraction from the real purpose here, which is controlled depopulation while retaining plausible deniability.
Is this the final, final or the final, final, final? Merry Christmas, either way.