Negotiating decarbonization for South Africa’s steel industry

The decarbonization of the steel industry is a national and global imperative. This paper argues that enacting this low-carbon transition in South Africa’s steel industry requires industrial policy that is informed by a renegotiated political settlement between state and industry. Using a transdisciplinary approach, we map directionality challenges across four policy dimensions: policy objective, logic, domain, and leverage. Key constraints identified include weak incentives, infrastructure gaps, limited finance, and lack of engagement with policymakers. In response, we propose negotiation elements for the initiation of a decarbonization-centred political settlement: ruling elites must enable ‘decarbonization rents’ and protected policy spaces; bureaucrats should actively engage industry to shape and enforce conditionalities; and capitalists must transform carbonintensive regimes, contingent on credible incentives.