BRUSSELS, Jan 12 (Reuters) - The European Union should not impose border tariffs on goods from countries that fail to cut back their climate-damaging emissions, the EU's trade commissioner-designate said on Tuesday.
"I don't think that's the right approach myself," Karel de Gucht told members of the European Parliament before they vote on his appointment. "It's an approach that will run into many practical problems."
Europe has pledged to cut its emissions of carbon dioxide, blamed for climate change, to a fifth below 1990 levels over the next decade.
But manufacturers worry that the cost of cleaning up factories and power-generators will make their products more expensive and less attractive than cheap imports from rivals in India and China.
Politicians, particularly in France, have argued that carbon tariffs imposed on goods from carbon-intensive manufacturing regions.
"The big risk is that there will be slippage into a trade war with people outbidding each other on such measures," said De Gucht. He called on politicians to stay within market laws while protecting the environment.
(Reporting by Pete Harrison; editing by David Brunnstrom)