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OHIO STEEL COUNCIL RESOLUTION REGARDING ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC SUSTAINABILITY
Adopted June 13, 2007
WHEREAS, man-made greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are considered by many to cause global climate change, and
WHEREAS, governments of the world attempted to reduce GHG through the provisions of the 1990 Kyoto Protocol, which set emission reduction goals for developed countries but exempted a number of developing countries including the major steel producers of China, India, Brazil, Turkey and Korea, which in 2006 produced more than 46 percent of world steel output, and
WHEREAS, the United States did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol because of the economic inequity of the exemptions and the economic impact such inequity might cause, and
WHEREAS, even though the Kyoto Protocol does not impose any legal obligations on the United States, had it been ratified it would have set a U.S. goal to reduce GHG by seven percent over the base year of 1990, and
WHEREAS, even though U. S. steel production increased since the Kyoto Protocol, its total GHG emissions in 2005 were 47 percent lower than in 1990, and
WHEREAS, new multi-national initiatives are now under consideration including the possible imposition of "cap and trade," a policy that European Union experience has shown to have very significant pitfalls, and
WHEREAS, if new emission reduction goals again exempt China -- the world's largest steel producer and soon to be the largest GHG emitter -- and the other exempted steel producing countries, significant unintended but very negative consequences will follow including the migration of steel making investments and jobs to the exempted countries due to the cost advantage of exemption from GHG reductions, and
WHEREAS, the accelerated expansion of steel making in the exempted countries will result in an increase rather than a decrease in global GHG emissions,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that greenhouse gas emissions be reduced worldwide but that the mechanism established to help achieve that goal require a review of the progress of all countries and industries in their greenhouse gas reductions since 1990, so as not to give a competitive advantage to countries or industries that have continued uncontrolled emissions of greenhouse gas | 
