Asia struggles to catch up as Europe leads aluminium’s decarbonisation race
The global aluminium industry is at a crossroad, caught between rapidly rising demand from the clean energy transition and the urgent need to decarbonise. As nations scale up solar farms, wind turbines, and electric vehicles, appetite for the lightweight metal is soaring — but producers are under pressure of decarbonising one of the most energy-intensive industries in the world.
A study released in September 2025 by Eurasia Group and Alcoa paints a mixed picture. On one hand, aluminium use is set to rise by 40 per cent by 2030 and by 80 per cent by 2050 compared with 2020 levels, cementing its place in the clean energy economy.
On the other, the industry is still far off the pace needed for net zero. Aluminium is responsible for about 3 per cent of global industrial emissions, and over the last decade companies have only managed to trim emissions intensity by 2 per cent a year. The pathway to net zero demands double that rate. Without new technologies such as inert anodes or large-scale carbon capture, emissions could soon plateau.
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