"China's steel industry has become a driver of global steel technology advancement and a contributor to green transformation, which is not just our aspiration or action, but is becoming a reality." This was pointed out by He Wenbo, Secretary of the Party Committee and Executive President of the China Iron and Steel Association, during his speech at the 2023 Global Low-Carbon Metallurgical Innovation Forum.

He also emphasized: "How to achieve green transformation while effectively fulfilling the industrial mission and maintaining and enhancing industrial competitiveness is the core issue for the steel industry to achieve its low-carbon goals, requiring joint efforts from the entire economic system and social system, including the steel industry itself."

He Wenbo stated that throughout the history of global steel development, steel materials have played the role of the most important structural material supporting global sustainable development since their inception. Even in emerging fields such as new energy, aerospace, and deep-sea exploration, steel materials remain the most widely used and cost-effective structural materials. According to the World Steel Association's forecast, the global demand for steel will continue to grow for a considerable period in the future. Given this, in the face of the severe challenges posed by global climate change, how to achieve green and low-carbon transformation is a major issue that the steel industry and policymakers around the world must rationally confront.

"The convergence of global steel power and wisdom is transforming the entire landscape of the steel industry, filling us with confidence in achieving the goal of low-carbon transformation in the steel sector. We believe that steel will undoubtedly be a significant contributor to solving the world's climate issues, not only in its own right but also in the tremendous carbon reduction value we deliver to our users," he said.

He Wenbo recalled that since China proposed the "dual carbon" targets, the Chinese steel industry has accelerated its transformation, with at least 100 Chinese steel companies advancing 1,000 breakthrough low-carbon common technology demonstration projects, of which 300 are in the R&D stage, 400 are in the pilot stage, and 300 have achieved phased results. Since its establishment, the Global Low-Carbon Metallurgy Innovation Alliance has actively leveraged its platform role, achieving a series of significant results in low-carbon metallurgy technology.

"China, as the world's largest producer and consumer of steel, is accelerating its green and low-carbon transformation through comprehensive technological updates, equipment upgrades, and process reengineering." He concluded.

In He Wenbo's view, green and low-carbon is the direction of the steel industry's transformation and upgrading, a systematic project that covers all areas and runs through the entire process. As the global steel industry's understanding and recognition of green and low-carbon development deepen, the green transformation of the steel industry, driven by government requirements, standard constraints, and user-oriented forces, is rapidly extending to various aspects such as products, data, standards, and certification. The demands for steel's green transformation in terms of technology, products, and rules are becoming increasingly urgent.

Currently, the steel industry is in an unprecedentedly difficult period, facing market pressure, environmental pressure, cost pressure, and transformation pressure. To break free from the predicament, to open up new horizons, and to construct new industrial development scenarios, it is not a matter that can be resolved by simply mentioning technological innovation. He Wenbo emphasized, "From the industry to the government, from China to the global stage, all must take innovation as the fundamental concept and starting point, initiating and advancing the reconstruction of a series of development environments. This includes technological innovation and management innovation within enterprises, as well as institutional innovation and governance innovation within the government."

Currently, major steel-producing countries and relevant international organizations around the world are rolling out new policies targeting greenhouse gases. The European Union has introduced a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, while the United States has issued a "Joint Policy Statement and Principles on Voluntary Carbon Markets." The United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the World Trade Organization, the World Steel Association, and other organizations have jointly initiated the development of "Principles for Steel Standards" to promote the harmonization of global steel standards and foster fair trade worldwide.

He Wenbo introduced that the Chinese government has just released the "Work Plan for Accelerating the Establishment of a Dual Control System for Carbon Emissions," which generally requires the establishment of a new mechanism for a comprehensive transition from energy consumption dual control to carbon emissions dual control. This includes further improving the policy and institutional system for local carbon assessment, industry carbon control, enterprise carbon management, project carbon evaluation, product carbon footprint, etc. Notably, the work plan for including the steel industry in the national carbon emission trading market has already begun public consultation.

"The continuous introduction and phased implementation of these policies undoubtedly indicate that China's steel industry's green transformation is beginning to make substantive shifts from the stage of consensus-building to the stage of action implementation," he said.

It is understood that to systematically advance the green and low-carbon development of the steel industry, the China Iron and Steel Association proposed an 8-character industry work guideline as early as the year, which is "Focus on Basics, Seek Breakthroughs, Set Benchmarks, Build Platforms, Establish Standards, Create Mechanisms, Emphasize Self-Discipline, and Strict Supervision." The Chinese steel industry has been steadily carrying out various tasks in accordance with the above guidelines, with each item having its own arrangements and progress, and specific achievements are gradually emerging.

He Wenbo further called for: "China's steel industry must continue to be a pioneer in low-carbon transformation, a practitioner of cooperation and shared benefits, and a contributor to global development, responding to climate change with a more proactive attitude. Steel enterprises should continue to strengthen forward-looking policy research, further break free from conventional thinking, define carbon emission constraints, coordinate the deployment of key work tasks, clarify overall development goals, further improve corporate governance systems, innovation systems, and indicator systems, and always maintain an active and enterprising stance in green and low-carbon work."

He Wenbo believes that substantial progress in low-carbon metallurgical technology innovation requires the exploration and investment in breakthrough and disruptive technologies. "Although fraught with risks and requiring significant investment, it is imperative to undertake this. This naturally raises the question of what cost is necessary to achieve such breakthroughs, and who should bear this cost? How can we address the practical obstacles posed by the mismatch between economic risks and green benefits to large-scale low-carbon technology investment?" He further extrapolates his thoughts.

He Wenbo stated that the key technological innovations for the low-carbon transformation of the steel industry must be original innovations, with long cycles and high risks. As an entire industry, it is necessary to study how to focus on key issues and minimize ineffective investments, while also exploring how to coordinate and integrate the limited resources of major innovation entities on the basis of focus, to the greatest extent possible, to form a mechanism of jointly facing and sharing risks.

In order to more efficiently mobilize various innovation resources and effectively organize different innovation entities to actively participate in key technology innovation activities, in the second half of the year, the Steel Association organized in-depth discussions among the directors of research institutes and technical centers of major steel enterprises across the country, resulting in the "Shanghai Consensus"; this year, the Steel Association's Low Carbon Work Committee has updated and released the "Vision and Low Carbon Technology Roadmap for the Steel Industry." Additionally, in accordance with the national strategy to accelerate the formation of top-level design for tackling key low-carbon core technologies in China, the National Steel Low Carbon Technology Innovation Center, which is in the process of preparation, has already formed an initial construction plan through the joint efforts of leading steel enterprises such as China Baowu and various major research institutions. The center will focus on organizing collaborative research and development around eight key technologies, including hydrogen-rich or all-hydrogen direct reduction technology, hydrogen-rich carbon cycle blast furnace technology, hydrogen-based smelting reduction technology, near-zero carbon electric arc furnace process technology, near-net-shape steel manufacturing technology, high scrap steel ratio efficient converter technology, metallurgical slag sensible heat recovery and high-efficiency resource utilization technology, and carbon dioxide capture and resource utilization technology.

At the annual council meeting of the steel association, the majority of member enterprises agreed and emphasized the need to quickly establish a collaborative research mechanism that adapts to the new situation and new tasks. This initiative has already been launched, and it is hoped that more steel enterprises, research institutions, and experts will actively join this effort. In pursuing breakthroughs in low-carbon steel technologies, it is intended to create a favorable situation where domestic and international collaborative innovation mutually enhances each other, according to He Wenbo.

He Wenbo stated that the process of the steel industry moving towards carbon neutrality is a long-term structural transformation, during which profound changes will occur in the raw material structure, energy structure, and product structure. Therefore, this is not only a transformation of the steel industry itself but also an overall transformation project involving the entire industrial chain and ecosystem.

As a key node in the steel industry chain, how steel enterprises conduct cross-industry resource integration and business cooperation is the crux and difficulty of whether the steel industry can achieve a fundamental transformation, but also an opportunity. He Wenbo elaborated on this from both upstream and downstream perspectives.

From the downstream perspective, with the growing demand for low-carbon emission steel in industries such as automobiles, energy, and transportation, the downstream demand structure is undergoing historic changes, and new tracks are being formed. "The steel industry not only needs to adapt to these changes but also to actively connect with new demands and take proactive actions to unblock key nodes in the upstream and downstream supply chains," said He Wenbo.

In order to better coordinate the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, the Steel Industry (Environmental Product Declaration) platform began to expand to the entire steel industrial chain in the year, and has already reached cooperation agreements with the Swedish International System and the Italian platform. At the same time, relying on the entire steel industrial chain platform, the Chinese steel industry established a low-carbon emission steel standard working group, which has formed a low-carbon emission steel standard system that meets international standard specifications and the actual conditions of the Chinese steel industry based on the basic carbon emission data of nearly 100 million tons of steel products, serving as an important link between upstream and downstream and between domestic and international markets.

From the upstream perspective, the overall transformation of the steel industry, due to the significant economic scale and resource usage involved, has become a cross-industry major issue regarding how to align with the development of green energy and resources. "From the current technical routes chosen by most steel enterprises, the demand for direct reduced iron and scrap steel is growing significantly. The development or further application of iron resources that match new technological processes and routes is needed. The original iron resource production and supply systems are struggling to adapt to future demand changes. The industrial boundaries between steel production and resource development and processing will be redefined. Whether there is or can obtain sufficient and economical new energy supply has become an important prerequisite for selecting iron resource production processes," said He Wenbo.

In fact, major global steel companies, including those in China, have already begun new deployments in this area. Cooperation projects among upstream and downstream enterprises in the steel industry are growing annually in different regions. This may be the more realistic and feasible solution we can foresee at present. He Wenbo emphasized that efforts and explorations in this area are still ongoing, and unforeseen changes may occur. It must be reiterated that the green and low-carbon transformation of the steel industry can only be continuously approached through the joint efforts of all parties in the industrial chain.

As long as global steel industry peers come together, collectively overcoming the difficulties and challenges of global economic development, and working in concert, we can find pragmatic paths for low-carbon transformation. The Chinese steel industry will join hands with the global steel community to contribute to low-carbon steel, a beautiful China, and a harmonious world.