European steel industry urges EU to ensure a fair emissions trading system
Environment Council meets in Paris / Industry to reduce over 30% of its C02 emissions by 2020 while aviation, transport and the building sector contribute little
One of the French EU presidency’s top priorities is the adoption of fundamental legislation to reduce the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions. The European environment and energy ministers meet today and tomorrow in Paris with climate change and energy as key issues and the European Parliament will decide on Tuesday in second reading on the inclusion of aviation into the European emissions trading system (ETS). The heart of the EU’s climate change policy, the ETS, is currently under revision aiming at reducing EU industry emissions by 21% in 2020 compared to 2005, which is more than 30% compared to the Kyoto reference year 1990. In parallel, the European institutions negotiate on a directive requiring Member States to reduce 10% in other sectors, like transport, buildings, agriculture and waste (Effort Sharing Directive).
EUROFER, the European Confederation of Iron and Steel Industries points out that the proposed measures lead to a huge disparity in the burden and an unfair treatment of manufacturing industry, the only sector which widely reduced emissions since 1990.
“Measures which are not related to the technical potential to reduce emissions and auctioning in particular will harm these industries and lead to a slow but steady de-location to countries outside the European Union and the loss of tens of thousands of jobs with consequences for the whole EU economy”, says Gordon Moffat, director general of EUROFER. “If we have to compete on CO2 certificates with the power sector and aviation, it will be very unlikely that we receive sufficient allowances to even satisfy the needs of the best performing steel installation in Europe.” The power sector and aviation do not have to compete globally and they can pass on their costs fully to the consumer while most manufacturing industries are exposed to fierce international competition and have a wide range of down-stream users before the product reaches the end-consumer. It would therefore not be comprehensible that aviation, which has increased its CO2 emissions between 1990 and 2005 by 96%, will not have to reduce emissions until 2020, while the steel industry, which reduced more than 20%, now has to reduce a further 21%. “Growth of aviation can not be an argument for giving aviation an advantage over other sectors. The European steel production is growing steadily over the last years and in 2007 some regions have seen an increase in steel employment for the first time since the seventies. The design of the European emissions trading system must not prevent the production of steel which the European economy requires”, states Moffat.
Represented by EUROFER, the European steel industry is the world leader in its sector with a turnover of EUR 140 billion and direct employment of 370 thousand people, producing 200 million tons of steel per year.
Contact
Gordon Moffat, Director General +32 2 738 79 26 (g.moffat@eurofer.be)
Axel Eggert, Director Public Affairs +32 2 738 79 34 (a.eggert@eurofer.be)