Decarbonising China’s Steel Industry

In September 2020, Chinese president Xi Jinping announced China’s commitment to peak carbon emissions by 2030 and to achieving carbon neutrality by 2060 (the ‘dual carbon strategy’), as a contribution to the global defence against climate change. The decarbonisation of China’s steel industry is essential to reaching an early carbon peak over the next few years and neutrality in the coming decades. These goals require an unprecedented rate of decarbonisation – a huge challenge. Developed countries in which emissions peaked in the 1990s (nineteen countries) and developing countries where emissions peaked in the 2000s (thirty-three countries), had a fifty-to-sixty-year transition to carbon neutrality. China seeks to achieve this same goal within the next forty years.