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The highly energy-intensive iron and steel industry contributed about 25% (ref. 1) of global industrial CO2 emissions in 2019 and is therefore critical for climate-change mitigation. Despite discussions of decarbonization potentials at national and global levels2–6, plant-specific mitigation potentials and technologically driven pathways remain unclear, which cumulatively determines the progress of net-zero transition of the global iron and steel sector. Here we develop a CO2 emissions inventory of 4,883 individual iron and steel plants along with their technical characteristics, including processing routes and operating details (status, age, operation-years etc.). We identify and match appropriate emission-removal or zero-emission technologies to specific possessing routes, or what we define thereafter as a techno-specific decarbonization road map for every plant. We find that 57% of global plants have 8–24 operational years, which is the retrofitting window for low-carbon technologies. Low-carbon retrofitting following the operational characteristics of plants is key for limiting warming to 2 °C, whereas advanced retrofitting may help limit warming to 1.5 °C. If each plant were retrofitted 5 years earlier than the planned retrofitting schedule, this could lead to cumulative global emissions reductions of 69.6 (±52%) gigatonnes (Gt) CO2 from 2020 to 2050, almost double that of global CO2 emissions in 2021. Our results provide a detailed picture of CO2 emission patterns associated with production processing of iron and steel plants, illustrating the decarbonization pathway to the net-zero-emissions target with the efforts from each plant.A CO2 emissions inventory of 4,883 individual iron and steel plants along with their technical characteristics is described, allowing the identification and guidance of the most appropriate emissions mitigation and decarbonization pathways for each plant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The highly energy-intensive iron and steel industry contributed about 25% (ref.  1 ) of global industrial CO 2 emissions in 2019 and is therefore critical for climate-change mitigation. Despite discussions of decarbonization potentials at national and global levels 2-6 , plant-specific mitigation potentials and technologically driven pathways remain unclear, which cumulatively determines the progress of net-zero transition of the global iron and steel sector. Here we develop a CO 2 emissions inventory of 4,883 individual iron and steel plants along with their technical characteristics, including processing routes and operating details (status, age, operation-years etc.). We identify and match appropriate emission-removal or zero-emission technologies to specific possessing routes, or what we define thereafter as a techno-specific decarbonization road map for every plant. We find that 57% of global plants have 8-24 operational years, which is the retrofitting window for low-carbon technologies. Low-carbon retrofitting following the operational characteristics of plants is key for limiting warming to 2 °C, whereas advanced retrofitting may help limit warming to 1.5 °C. If each plant were retrofitted 5 years earlier than the planned retrofitting schedule, this could lead to cumulative global emissions reductions of 69.6 (±52%) gigatonnes (Gt) CO 2 from 2020 to 2050, almost double that of global CO 2 emissions in 2021. Our results provide a detailed picture of CO 2 emission patterns associated with production processing of iron and steel plants, illustrating the decarbonization pathway to the net-zero-emissions target with the efforts from each plant., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)