Podcast special: can factories be decarbonised?

Britain looks set on its 2050 Net Zero target (or if Labour gets in, 2030), but to achieve that, it’ll take more than just a beef ban and paper straws. The Climate Change Committee writes that British heavy industry – for example the cement-makers and the steel-makers – will have to ‘largely decarbonise’ in order to achieve 2050. Currently, heavy industry produces a quarter of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

But decarbonisation of heavy industry isn’t just replacing the fossil fuels factories burn with renewables. Some processes, such as steel production, emits high amounts of CO2 in its lifecycle.

Swedish energy company Vattenfall may be close to a solution: its HYBRIT system, still in development, aims to create a heavy industry process that emits hydrogen instead of CO2, and using renewable energy too. This and other routes to decarbonisation are the topics for discussion in the latest special episode of Spectator Radio, where Fraser Nelson speaks to Vattenfall CEO Magnus Hall, head of UK Steel Gareth Stace, and minister for Business and Industry, Nadhim Zahawi. Tune in to find out exactly how the world may change in the coming decades.