At the COP26 climate summit on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced 2070 as the target for India to reach net zero carbon emissions. India’s announcement came as a surprise to delegates at the climate talks in Glasgow, as it had rejected calls to announce such a target only last week. Environment secretary RP Gupta had argued that it was more important for the world to lay out a pathway to reduce emissions than just achieving carbon neutrality. A net-zero target refers to the date by which point a country will only emit carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases that can be absorbed by forests, crops, soil and developing technologies like carbon capture technology.

Tata Steel has commissioned India’s first carbon capture plant that extracts CO2 directly from the blast furnace gas, at its Jamshedpur Works. With this achievement, Tata Steel has become the country’s first steel company to adopt such a carbon capture technology. The CCU plant was inaugurated by T.V. Narendran, CEO and MD, Tata Steel, in the presence of company officials and other dignitaries.