India’s industrial sectors are in the middle of a once-in-a-generation transition.

India produces ~149 MMT of steel annually, 77% via the blast furnace route. CBAM has made the carbon intensity of every export tonne financially material since January 2026. CCTS GEI targets are tightening. The Green Steel Taxonomy (Gazette 763E) defines what qualifies as green. The scrap-EAF opportunity is real but the domestic scrap supply is insufficient. And the reline-or-retire decision on India’s ageing blast furnace fleet is becoming the single largest capital decision in Indian industry.

Approximately 80% of Indian aluminium’s embedded emissions come from captive coal power plants. CBAM covers both Scope 1 and Scope 2, which makes electricity source the decisive competitive variable. The cost gap between a coal smelter and a hydro smelter under CBAM is €800–1,000/t — on a product worth ~€2,200/t. CCTS targets are plant-level, drawn from the Official Gazette, and financially material. Secondary aluminium’s embedded emissions are 5% of primary — making it India’s lowest CBAM cost position.

India is the world’s second-largest cement producer with over 450 MMT of capacity. Unlike other sectors where electricity or fuel switching solves the problem, roughly 60% of cement’s emissions are ‘process emissions’ from calcining limestone — making it uniquely hard to abate. While India leads in blended cement, the next phase of deep decarbonisation under CCTS and CBAM requires massive scaling of Alternative Fuels (AFR), Waste Heat Recovery Systems, and eventually, Carbon Capture.

India’s fertiliser sector runs almost entirely on natural gas feedstock — 86% sourced from West Asia. The Hormuz crisis has made supply vulnerability impossible to ignore. The decarbonisation pathway runs through green hydrogen and the Hydrogen Purchase Obligation. Green ammonia exported to the EU carries zero CBAM liability — a direct financial premium. N₂O abatement at nitric acid plants is the highest-leverage CCTS opportunity in the sector, with two-year payback periods.

Indian Railways has reached 99.6% electrification of its broad gauge network — making it the most advanced hard-to-abate sector on decarbonisation. The Dedicated Freight Corridors (EDFC and WDFC) have changed the economics of industrial rail logistics permanently. Road freight is the harder problem — diesel-dependent, fragmented, and without a clear near-term electrification pathway at scale. The West Asia war has widened the electric rail advantage over road sharply.

Coal generation fell 3% in 2025 — the first structural decline since 1973. RE generation rose 22% to 270 BU. Non-fossil installed capacity has reached 52.57%, five years ahead of the earlier 2030 target. But the Grid Emission Factor (0.710 tCO₂/MWh) still makes grid electricity carbon-intensive enough to matter for every industrial Scope 2 calculation. We track the REC market, CCC trading on regulated power exchanges, CERC amendments, and the Green Energy Open Access Rules 2022.