CHINA Baowu Steel Group has set up a Global Low-Carbon Metallurgical Innovation Alliance with partners to tackle climate change and cut greenhouse emissions in the world’s biggest steel producer. The more than 60 members from 15 countries include ArcelorMittal, BHP Group, Rio Tinto, Vale, Fortescue Metals Group, Tata Steel , Thyssenkrupp, Angang Group, HBIS Group and Shagang Group, Baowu said at an inaugural ceremony in Shanghai. “For now, it’s hard for any steel firm to realize low-carbon transition on their own,” said Baowu Deputy General Manager Hou Angui at the event. Hou was also named secretary general of the alliance. The alliance hopes to advance technological cooperation, and promote engineering and industrialization of low-carbon techniques, according to Baowu. China, which aims to bring carbon emissions to a peak by 2030, emits more than 10 billion tons of greenhouse gases a year. The ferrous metal sector accounts for around 15 percent of those. The country pledged to limit its crude steel output this year to no more than the record 1.065 billion tons it churned out in 2020 to cut pollutants and emissions. Production in the first 10 months of 2021 was down 0.7 percent year on year. “There are many ways to reach carbon neutrality in the steel sector,” He Wenbo, executive chairman of the China Iron and Steel Association, told the forum. “But the fundamental solution lies in technology,” he said, adding a plan to implement carbon neutrality in China’s steel sector had mostly been finalized and would be issued soon. (SD-Agencies) | 