SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF METALLURGY

The energy consumption and CO2 emission of Swedish produc-tion of flat and long products of structural steel have been as-sessed by means of LCI data from the IISI study. Two general factors reduce the expenditure of energy and CO2 emission in Swedish production of both flat and long products: energy efficient steel processes and extremely low CO2 emis-sions for generation of electricity. For flat steel products also two specific features contribute to their low energy consumption and CO2 emission, viz. the use of magnetite iron ore instead of hematite and a product programme with a uniquely large share of high strength steels. The latter allows significant weight savings in end products, thus resulting 1. Background 1.1 The Kyoto protocol The emission of carbon dioxide and its influence on the climate were discussed in the UN conference in Rio 1992. But already four years earlier the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In the Rio conference the participating coun-tries decided that the greenhouse effect is a real prob-lem and must be taken care of. Six years later 175 countries had ratified this Climate Convention (United Nations Framework Convention for Climate). The third meeting of the parties of this Convention was held in Kyoto 1997. In this meeting it was agreed to decrease the emissions of six greenhouse gases with 5.2 % in the industrialised countries from 1990 to 2010 (average 2008–2012). The countries in the EU have to decrease their emissions by 8%. Within the EU the countries have made their own division based on the possibilities for the different countries to decrease the emissions. As a result of this Sweden is allowed to increase its emissions by 4%. The six gases in the Ky-oto Protocol are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulphur hexafluorid