India Leads Global Steelmaking Boom with Huge Capacity Under Development

India has the most steelmaking capacity under development in the world, surpassing even China, the climate research group said in a report released Tuesday. The government’s National Steel Policy relies heavily on emissions-intensive coal-fired blast furnaces, and then trying to decarbonize them once they are built, rather than moving to green steelmaking, it said.

India’s booming and coal-dependent steel industry means the country faces a “rocky and uncertain path” toward achieving its goal of reaching net zero by 2070, according to Global Energy Monitor.

The plan doesn’t consider stepping away from the fossil fuel, Henna Khadeeja, a GEM researcher and lead author of the report, said in an interview. “All this coal locked-in only pushes India’s net zero target further away,” because retroactively removing carbon from the supply chain via other technologies will be “very difficult,” she said.

India is the world’s third-largest emitter and, given that it still has a rapidly growing population and economy, the rate at which it can decarbonize will have a major impact on global efforts to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The steel sector accounted for 12% of the country’s emissions in 2022, and a building and infrastructure boom looks set to keep pushing that higher.