China Unveils Fresh Plans to Decarbonize Steel Sector

South China Morning Post reported that China’s Ministry of Industry & Information Technology, National Development & Reform Commission and Ministry of Ecology & Environment have assigned targets to reduce energy consumption and boost recycling to reach peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2030. Industrial enterprises with annual revenue of CNY 20 million (USD 2.9 million) or more have been ordered to reduce their energy consumption by 13.5% by 2025 compared with 2020 levels, By 2030, the aim is to establish a modern industrial system with high efficiency, green, circular and low-carbon characteristics Companies in steel, building materials, petrochemicals, non-ferrous metals, consumer goods, equipment manufacturing and electronics sectors will be subject to the new rules. The seven sectors have also been urged to actively promote green manufacturing by building low-carbon factories, developing a more sustainable green supply chain and developing a circular economy, with an emphasis on recycling and replacing carbon-heavy materials with low-carbon alternatives, according to the plan. The plan has called for expanding the coverage of China’s national emissions trading scheme, which currently only regulates the power sector, to include industrial sectors to help with their low-carbon transition. It also wants to see progress on green finance to provide funding for green and low-carbon projects in the industrial sectors. For the steel sector, which contributes about 15% of China’s total carbon emissions, the plan called for an annual recycling capacity of 180 million tonnes of scrap iron and steel by 2025. By 2030, the steel sector is also expected to achieve technological breakthroughs in cutting carbon emissions. Chinese state agencies have issued several policies on achieving carbon neutrality in heavy industries. Last December, MIIT released a five-year green development plan targeting the industrial sector. The targets included cutting carbon emissions by 18%, energy use by 13.5% and achieving CNY 11 trillion of economic output by the environmental sector by 2025. The same month MIIT introduced another five-year plan to help the raw materials industry transition to low-carbon. By 2025, the production capacity of major bulk raw material goods such as crude steel and cement should either drop or remain unchanged. The energy consumption to produce a tonne of steel and cement should also be reduced by 2% and 3.7% respectively

China Unveils Fresh Plans to Decarbonize Steel Sector

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