Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 7 • Number 18 • 19th October 2007

Steel Industry Looking Ahead to a Post-Kyoto World

Discuss this articleShare your views with other visitors, and read what they have to say

At its annual meeting in Berlin, the International Iron and Steel Institute (IISI) Board of Directors announced a plan to collect voluntary carbon emissions data in order to devise a plan to fight climate change. IISI is entering the next stage in its “Global Sectoral Approach” for steel, starting with collecting data in order to assist with setting post-2012 carbon emissions commitments.

Steel is a heavily traded commodity, and concerns have been raised regarding relocation of industries away from countries with strict climate change policies and accompanying “carbon leakage.”

In Japan, North America and Western Europe, the steel industry has reduced carbon emissions by 49 percent in the last 25 years. The global steel industry accounts for 3-4 percent of global carbon emissions. However, 90 percent of that comes from iron production, which is concentrated in China, the EU-27, Japan, the US, Russia, India, Brazil, Ukraine and Korea.

IISI stressed the importance of involving the world’s top steel producers for the initiative to be useful. According to the institute, large steel firms need to be able to maintain a competitive price; Industry is concerned, because carbon emissions regulation can involve a considerable cost burden. An IISI spokesperson estimated that carbon emissions taxes could add as much as EUR 60-70 per tonne of steel after 2012.

Negotiations on the future of the climate change regime are set to take shape at a key meeting in Bali, Indonesia in December this year.

To access IISI fact sheets on climate change, visit http://www.worldsteel.org/index.php?action=storypages&id=226&subId=247

ICTSD reporting; “World Steelmakers to Collect Global Climate Data,” REUTERS, 10 October 2007; “Steel Industry to Report CO2 Emissions,” ENVIRONMENTAL LEADER, 11 October 2007.