The European Steel Association (EUROFER) has stated following a EU Trade Council meeting that the EU and the US are still far from reaching an agreement to advance climate protection, fight trade distortions in the global industry and solve the EU-US trade dispute by the end of 2023.
The association warns that the absence of a Global Arrangement on Sustainable Steel risks jeopardizing the European steel industry’s decarbonization efforts and is a missed opportunity for both ensuring fair trade and advancing on climate protection.
According to the OECD, current non-market excess capacity in the global steel industry has reached 600 million mt, and a further 150 million mt is expected to come on stream in the next three years. In addition to China, new sources of excess capacity are growing in ASEAN countries, South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. “This new conventional, carbon-intensive capacity will lock-in CO2 emissions for decades to come, resulting in more CO2 emissions than the entire EU steel industry combined and wiping out all EU steel industry emission reduction efforts up to 2050 in just three years,” Axel Eggert, director general of EUROFER, said.