The threat climate change poses to the long-term sustainability of our planet is widely understood and accepted. The rising levels of awareness and commitment to address the challenge are encouraging. The Paris climate agreement has 185 signatories and a growing number of countries, as well as companies, have ambitions to achieve climate neutrality by 2050.

That is the good news. The harder part is that “solving” climate change poses very complex technical and political challenges. This is clear from the fact that, despite the efforts to date, global emissions continue to grow. And demand for energy, materials, transport and food will only intensify as the world continues to develop and the population further increases.

Clearly it is essential we invent new ways of doing things that don’t rely on fossil fuels. For the global steel industry, that means while it continues to reduce its carbon footprint through energy efficiency, ultimately it needs to use an energy source other than coal to extract iron from iron ore, a critical part of the primary steelmaking process.