Quantifying China's iron and steel industry's CO2 emissions and environmental health burdens: A pathway to sustainable transformation

Assessing the iron and steel industry's (ISI) impact on climate change and environmental health is vital, particularly in China, where this sector significantly influences air quality and CO₂ emissions. There is a lack of comprehensive analyses that consider the environmental and health burdens of manufacturing processes for ISI enterprises. Here, we present an integrated emission inventory that encompasses air pollutants and CO₂ emissions from 811 ISI enterprises and five key manufacturing processes in 2020. Our analysis shows that sintering is the primary source of air pollution in the ISI. It contributes 71% of SO₂, 73% of NO_x, and 54% of PM_2.5 emissions. On the other hand, 81% of total CO₂ emissions come from blast furnaces. Significantly, the contributions of ISI have resulted in an increase of 3.6 μg m⁻³ in national population-weighted PM_2.5 concentration, causing approximately 59,035 premature deaths in 2020. Emissions from Hebei, Jiangsu, Shandong, Shanxi, and Inner Mongolia provinces contributed to 48% of PM_2.5-related deaths in China. Moreover, the transportation of air pollutants across provincial borders highlights a concerning trend of environmental health inequality. Based on the research findings, it is crucial for ISI manufacturers to prioritize the removal of outdated production capacities and adopt energy-efficient and advanced techniques, along with ultra-low emission technologies. This is particularly important for those manufacturers with substantial environmental footprints. These transformative actions are essential in mitigating the environmental and health impacts in the affected regions.