Hard-to-abate sectors
Also called: Hard to abate industries · Topic: Environment and Sustainable Development · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Hard-to-abate sectors are industries and transport modes where greenhouse gas emissions are very hard to cut with today's technology. To "abate" means to reduce. Examples are fertilisers, oil refining, steel, cement, heavy road transport and shipping.
Their emissions are hard to cut for three main reasons:
- They need very high heat.
- They use fossil fuels as a raw material (feedstock) inside the chemical process, not just as fuel.
- Their machines run over long distances, where batteries are not practical.
In cement, the limestone itself gives off CO₂ when it is heated. Clean electricity alone cannot remove these emissions. That is why these sectors need special tools such as:
- green hydrogen (hydrogen made by splitting water with renewable power)
- carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), which means trapping CO₂ so it can be used or stored underground
- transition finance, which is money for dirty sectors while they move to cleaner methods
These sectors decide whether a net-zero target can be met. India's target year for net zero is 2070.
Example
Indian fertiliser plants make ammonia from hydrogen. Today they get that hydrogen from natural gas, which releases CO₂. Under the National Green Hydrogen Mission (approved January 2023), SECI held its first green ammonia auction in August 2025. It found a price of ₹55.75/kg, which helps fertiliser units switch to the cleaner input.
Don't confuse with
- Highly polluting industries (CPCB's 17 categories): This is a list of factories that cause heavy local air and water pollution. Hard-to-abate is about how difficult it is to cut greenhouse gas emissions, not about how much local pollution a factory causes.