* Big carbon costs loom for Asian firms
* Airlines, cement, steel firms likely to be hit
* December's Copenhagen climate meeting to be catalyst
By David Fogarty, Climate Change Correspondent, Asia
SINGAPORE, June 9 (Reuters) - Many Asian firms do not fully understand the potential earnings impacts of carbon pricing in the region nor are they prepared for the risk of carbon import duties on their goods, a senior UBS analyst said on Tuesday.
Airlines, cement and steel firms, computer makers and shipping lines were among the sectors likely to be hit depending on margins, ability to pass on costs and exposure to the United States and Europe, said Simon Smiles, Asian thematic analyst for UBS in Hong Kong.
He said a major climate meeting in December in Denmark could be a catalyst for wider introduction of carbon pricing in Asia and that a carbon tax or emissions trading would affect many companies across every Asian market within three years.
"Investors in Asia don't focus on this issue at all. They are very short-term focused, they look at climate change and think this isn't something governments in India and China really have front-of-mind," he told Reuters from Hong Kong.
Smiles is author of major UBS report "How could carbon pricing impact Asian company earnings?", published recently. He looked at three scenarios: domestic carbon pricing in Asian countries; "equalising" carbon import duties between richer and poorer nations and harsher climate change carbon import duties.
He said the second option was the most likely in the medium term and pointed to signals from the United States and the European Union about the possible introduction of duties on goods from countries that don't have greenhouse gas caps.
The Waxman-Markey climate bill, yet to be voted on in Congress, proposes the introduction of an international reserve allowance programme. This would involve U.S. firms buying energy-intensive goods from nations that do not have the same emissions targets as the United States.
The U.S. firms would have to buy the allowances to offset the carbon implied in the foreign products, such as cement or steel.
CARBON DUTIES
Smiles said marine transport firms, airlines, steel makers and computer companies would be affected under the second scenario because exporters would pay for the carbon based on the amount of CO2 they emitted. Domestic firms did not.
"When the U.S. introduces carbon pricing, nations comprising over 50 percent of global private consumption will have carbon pricing. They'll be in a better position to potentially introduce carbon-related import duties."
According to the report, Taiwan's Eva Airways would be the most-affected Asian airline, with earnings per share falling 34.3 percent under this scenario, based on 2010 earnings projections and a carbon price of US$9 per tonne.
Thailand's Siam City Cement's EPS would fall 10.6 percent, while South Korean Hyundai Merchant Marine's EPS would drop 51.4 percent.
Under the first scenario in which domestically focused firms and exporters pay for the CO2 they emit, airlines, power utilities, marine transport and cement makers are among the worst hit, he said.
The study assumed countries in Asia introduced domestic carbon taxes or carbon trading schemes targeting a 20 percent reduction in CO2 emissions.
China Airlines, for instance would see its estimated 2010 EPS plunge catastrophically because of the high exposure to the United States and EU, 30 percent fuel cost exposure and slightly negative earnings margin.
Singapore Airlines' EPS would fall only 8.6 percent because of its 9.5 percent net profit margin and slightly smaller fuel cost exposure, according to the report.
Smiles said the third scenario in which exporters of manufactured goods directly or indirectly paid for the CO2 their home countries emitted looked less likely at present.
Under this scenario the primary motivation was to force the hand of China, India and other developing nations to join world efforts to fight global warming.
"The assumption in the report is to have a look at broadly what we think a domestic carbon pricing regime would cost (for these countries)," Smiles said.
It was then assumed that the entire cost for every country was imposed by the U.S. and Europe on all manufactured exports from those countries by way of a flat tax.
For China, the implied carbon cost was $55 billion in 2007 terms, while for India it was $9 billion.
(Editing by Keiron Henderson)