Recent EU level negotiations concerning the application of the Emissions Trading System after 2020 jeopardise the activity, competitiveness and mere existence of several upstream industries such as the mining industry, the carbon and graphite sector and the refractories industry, sectors vital to the steel making and steel recycling. If no supportive measures are taken, Europe will soon become fully dependent on Chinese and Indian imports.
As illustrated in the Ceramic Industry Roadmap to 2050, whilst there is potential for further reduction of CO2 emissions linked to direct and indirect fuel emissions, process emissions are inherent to the raw material (e.g. clay in the case of bricks & roof tiles, magnesia for refractory magnesia bricks, etc.). Alain Delcourt, President of Cerame-Unie, stresses “that higher CO2 costs on process emissions would strongly disrupt business models in all ceramic sectors under the ETS and would lead to automatic shifts to imported raw materials eventually resulting in production relocation in the refractory sector, thereby affecting EU domestic jobs and increasing the carbon footprint for products consumed in the EU!”