In the last three decades, there has been continued energy and process efficiency improvements in industrial operations, both light and heavy. However, emissions from industry remain larger than those from the global transport sector, accounting for over 30 per cent of global end-use GHG emissions and include the ‘hard to abate’ sectors such as steel and cement production.
An absolute reduction in emissions from industrial sub-sectors will require the deployment of a broader and more ambitious set of mitigation options, well beyond energy efficiency measures. These include sector-coupling strategies to electrify all areas of the economy, including such as transport, buildings and industry, by plugging them directly into an increasingly renewably powered grid or switching to green hydrogen produced from renewables (indirect electrification).
For many lower-income countries that are yet to reach their energy access targets, opportunities to attract investment in renewable electricity generation capacity offers a win-win in the pursuit of a low-carbon development pathway. Further, many countries in the global south have excess solar, hydro or wind resources that can be harnessed to power green hydrogen production, thus providing opportunities for value-added export of green fuels to more energy-hungry OECD economies.
