Steel magnates challenged to protect glaciers as Olympic torch arrives in Chamonix

Chamonix, France, June 21, 2024 - With the torch of the 2024 Olympic Games passing through Chamonix this Sunday, a century after the first Winter Olympic Games took place there, Olympic sponsor, torch-producer, and largest polluter in France, ArcelorMittal, is being warned that it needs to take definitive action to cut climate emissions.

Activists from the Shiny Claims, Dirty Flames campaign held banners featuring ArcelorMittal company leaders Lakshmi and Aditya Mittal and reading “ArcelorMittal: your steel melts glaciers” in front of Mer de glace, Europe’s largest glacier (1). Mer de glace has retreated by two kilometres in the past 100 years, and it is expected to disappear completely by 2100, fundamentally changing Europe’s alpine environment and severely impacting local businesses and communities (2).

The impact of steel production on climate change is substantial, with the sector responsible for at least seven percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. The Mittal family owns 42 percent of ArcelorMittal, and the company’s decarbonisation plans are currently judged to be on track for 3.2C of warming (3).

ArcelorMittal not only claims it is unable to set a climate target that aligns with limiting climate change to 1.5C, it is actively backtracking from decarbonisation plans in Europe, and expanding coal-based production in countries like India. While only 10 countries will be able to host the Winter Olympics by 2040 due to climate impacts (4), the 800 million people that rely on water from disappearing Himalayan glaciers for drinking, irrigation, and hydropower in India alone will feel the effects of ArcelorMittal’s failure to reduce emissions far more keenly.

“ArcelorMittal is uniquely placed to be a global leader on steel decarbonisation, and it clearly wants to be seen as one… but the fact it has spent 22 times more enriching its shareholders than it has spent on decarbonisation in the last three years shows where its true priorities are,” said Pascal Husting, Shiny Claims, Dirty Flames spokesperson.

“ArcelorMittal is the worst polluter in France, and its contribution to global emissions is enormous. Until it backs up its shiny claims with real action to end coal expansion and accelerate decarbonisation, its steel-making will continue to melt the world’s glaciers.”

The Fair Steel Coalition behind the Shiny Claims, Dirty Flames campaign is calling on ArcelorMittal to invest in future proofing its operations through a fast and fair transition away from coal-based production, not enriching its shareholders.

ENDS

Contacts:

Pascal Husting - Spokesperson (EN/FR)

Shiny Claims, Dirty Flames campaign

+352 621 887 730

Media Liaison

Xavier De Wannemaeker (EN/FR)

Media Liaison (France)

+31 6 2635 9683

Greg McNevin (EN)

Communications, SteelWatch (Australia)

greg@steelwatch.org, +61 475 247 044

Notes:

1. Photos are available here: https://tinyurl.com/yrfz4rsh
2. It Just Got Easier to Visit a Vanishing Glacier. Is That a Good Thing? https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/03/travel/chamonix-france-glaciers-climate-change.html It is estimated that Mer de glace will disappear completely by 2100: https://www.euronews.com/2020/10/19/will-france-s-largest-glacier-still-be-here-by-the-end-of-the-century
   Glaciers are not just tourist attractions: they also provide vital services like freshwater. In India and neighbouring countries, glaciers feed major rivers like the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Indus. In 2023, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterrez warned that these rivers “could have massively reduced flows”, with catastrophic consequences for the hundreds of millions of people depending on them for their supply in freshwater and energy (https://www.teriin.org/sites/default/files/2019-11/cc-impact-himalayan-glacier.pdf). As he said then, “stop the madness. The glaciers are retreating, but we cannot. We must end the fossil fuel age” (https://press.un.org/en/2023/sgsm22013.doc.htm). Building new coal-based steel plants, like ArcelorMittal’s operations in India is planning to do, pushes away the end of the fossil fuel age, with catastrophic consequences felt all over the globe, from Chamonix to the Himalayas.
3. SteelWatch Arcelormittal Corporate Climate Assessment 2024: https://steelwatch.org/reports/arcelormittal-corporate-climate-assessment-2024/ArcelorMittal ESG an Climate rating: https://www.msci.com/our-solutions/esg-investing/esg-ratings-climate-search-tool/issuer/arcelormittal-sa/IID000000002157753 The company’s latest Integrated Annual Review, published in April 2024, stated: “We appreciate the work that SBTi has done to model a 1.5C trajectory for steel. After much discussion and consideration, we have concluded that in the absence of an appropriate global policy, we are not in a position to credibly set a science-based aligned group target at this point in time.” (emphasis added). https://corporate.arcelormittal.com/media/press-releases/arcelormittal-publishes-its-2023-integrated-annual-review ArcelorMittal is responsible for the same amount of emissions as Belgium. It pledged to spend USD1.5 billion on decarbonisation over the last three years, but has spent just USD500 million. In the same three-year period, it handed USD11 billion to shareholders through stock buybacks and dividends, and soaked up billions in subsidies from European governments to decarbonise its operations. The company has previously said that the total cost for its planned clean steel transition actions to 2030 would be USD10 billion.While containing climate change requires an absolute decrease in yearly GHG emissions from now, ArcelorMittal’s India operation’s GHG emissions will massively increase in the coming years: the targeted reduction in carbon intensity will not be sufficient to offset the rise of emissions coming from higher production.
4. Winter Olympics: Impact of climate change will reduce countries that can host snow sports says IOC: https://www.bbc.com/sport/winter-sports/67105278
5. As part of its official Olympic sponsorship, ArcelorMittal has provided “steel with a reduced carbon footprint” for the torch that is carrying the Eternal Flame, and the cauldron. The reduced carbon footprint comes from two factors: First, the steel is 100% made from scrap in an electric arc furnace (EAF); and second, ArcelorMittal indirectly buys enough renewable electricity to cover the consumption of the EAF. ArcelorMittal says the combination of the two can lead to a carbon footprint “as low as approximately 300kg of CO2 per tonne of finished steel”, though it does not indicate the exact total carbon footprint of the torches. This process is not new: recycled steel is useful but common. It does not represent a technological shift to decarbonise on a pathway that is compatible with the Paris Agreement or a 1.5C climate scenario.
6. Shiny Claims, Dirty Flames (http://shiny.claims) is a campaign organised by an alliance of different organisations, facilitated by the Fair Steel Coalition, and hosted by SteelWatch, calling on ArcelorMittal to:
   1. Respect human rights, in actions not just words;
   2. Stop making empty promises and be a real climate champion;
   3. Invest in future proofing your company, not enriching shareholders;
   4. Put workers, communities, and our environment first;
   5. Stop its dirty tricks: be accountable and transparent.
7. The Fair Steel coalition has also documented instances of land grabs, ecosystem destruction, loss of livelihoods, and serious health problems have been documented, as well as ArcelorMittal’s silence on enforced disappearances around its mines and steel plants in Mexico, Brazil, Liberia, and South Africa, in the new report: The Real Cost of Steel https://edlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Real-Cost-of-Steel.pdf