Mr Ian Christmas, Secretary General of the International Iron and Steel Institute (IISI) spoke in Bali at the UNFCCC Cop 13 meeting and issued an appeal to the delegates that Governments need to work together with the steel industry if future successful emissions regulatory regimes are to deliver meaningful reductions in emissions and thus genuinely benefit climate change. At the IISI annual meeting in Berlin in October this year, the Board of Directors approved the next stage in the establishment of a global industry sector approach for steel. At the core of the new steel sector approach is the collection and reporting of carbon dioxide emissions data by steelplants in all the major steel producing countries. The information collection will lead to benchmarking improvements based on actual performance data and then reporting and setting of commitments on a national or regional basis for implementation during the post-Kyoto period. The key advantage of the IISI approach is that it is supported by its members in both the developed and developing countries including China, which accounts for approximately 50% of total steelmaking CO2 emissions. IISI uses an intensity-based approach to measurement of carbon dioxide emissions, taking into account the CO2 produced per tonne of steel rather than the total carbon dioxide emissions within a country or region. This globally consistent calculation methodology will allow production normalised CO2 emission comparisons between regions that are not possible today.
